


waiting on some beautiful boy to

by micdropbam



Series: "Do I feel good about it? No, but you have to go from here, so we go from here—" [2]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha Peter Parker, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Breeding Kink, Companion Piece, Dirty Talk, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Guilt, Hopeful Ending, I just want to underline how much of this fic is Peter Parker feeling guilty, Illustrations, Inspired by Fanart, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mentor/Protégé, Moral Dilemmas, Mpreg, Omega Miles Morales, Oral Sex, Past Sex Pollen, Peter Parker is a Mess, Possessiveness, Pregnant Sex, Reconciliation Rather Than Justice, Rimming, Scent Marking, Sweet Miles Morales, Teen Pregnancy, The Poor Thing Has Complex On Top Of Complex, Unplanned Pregnancy, ah shit here we go again, dimensional shenanigans, everyone is trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25893304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micdropbam/pseuds/micdropbam
Summary: The thing about Peter Parker’s worst mistakes—the NOW That’s What I Call Hubris! of his life, volumes one through twenty-five, that play on shuffle when he’s in the shower or trying to sleep—is that he always knows he’s doing something wrong or making a mistakeat the time.When he used his powers to win wrestling matches, which was cheating and he knew it. When he let that thief go because he was feeling petty, which killed Uncle Ben. When he didn’t reveal Green Goblin’s identity when he first learned it, which not only didn’t stop Harry from his self-destruction but led to Gwen’s death...And it was the same with the current mistake, the one that currently had him retching into the toilet after having gone on his worst bender since the night they signed the divorce papers.He fucked Miles. He fucked Milesthree times.
Relationships: Miles Morales/Peter B. Parker, Peter B. Parker & Mary Jane Watson
Series: "Do I feel good about it? No, but you have to go from here, so we go from here—" [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878997
Comments: 35
Kudos: 86





	1. I mean technically our marriage is saved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clora/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Collider](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592285) by [starwheel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starwheel/pseuds/starwheel). 



>   
> (please read ["Puppy"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25663321/chapters/62302873) first as it explains plot points that this work skips over or hints at)

The thing about Peter Parker’s worst mistakes—the _NOW That’s What I Call Hubris!_ of his life, volumes one through twenty-five, that play on shuffle when he’s in the shower or trying to sleep—is that he always knows he’s doing something wrong or making a mistake _at the time._ When he used his powers to win wrestling matches, which was cheating and he knew it. When he let that thief go because he was feeling petty, which killed Uncle Ben. When he didn’t reveal Green Goblin’s identity when he first learned it, which not only didn’t stop Harry from his self-destruction but led to Gwen’s death. Lying to MJ that he wanted them to marry instead of pair-bond because it would make it easier for her career if she didn't need him physically close, when the truth was that he couldn’t stand the idea of her being alone all her life when he died. Lying to MJ that they’d have kids “someday" and that "the time isn't right yet" instead of admitting that he was scared of being a father and didn't think that would ever change, until he’d destroyed her faith in him entirely.

And it was the same with the current mistake, the one that currently had him retching into the toilet after having gone on his worst bender since the night they signed the divorce papers.

He fucked Miles. He fucked Miles _three times._

The first time, the sense that he was doing something wrong was like a nagging fly, disappearing out of his mind constantly, always coming back, but only briefly, driven away immediately by the intoxicating scent or the boy’s pleading voice and eyes. The second time, he was bargaining with himself, saying the damage was already done and that another round would only help the boy cope with his heat, and never mind about Peter’s pleasure from it. The third time... the third time though... it was like a goddamn siren going off in his head the whole time, from when he texted Miles that he’d come over all the way until he returned to his own dimension.

_WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG..._

His head certainly feels like a siren is going off in it still as he dry heaves again. Especially because his music is still playing from the living room, the plucking strings of Panic! At the Disco particularly ill-suited to Peter’s nausea.

How could he do that to Miles? Miles was still a kid inside _,_ he didn’t know what he was doing when he made those noises and touched his soft wet lips to—

Peter hears a key turn in the front door and he scrambles back from the toilet.

No. _No._

He’d heard the door buzzer go off but he’d ignored it, just like he ignored the sounds of texts and calls.

There is only one person who has a key to his apartment and would use it to come check on him like this.

As Peter hears the sound of heels clicking into the apartment and suddenly stopping, he can picture exactly what’s happening.

MJ taking an ordinary innocent breath, just breathing, and realizing something is weird. Stopping, taking a deeper breath, smelling the residue of heat.

The footsteps start again, pause—she’s looking at the empty bottles, no doubt—and then start again, heading straight towards him.

The door is already open. MJ just has to appear in it, karma police there to arrest and convict him. She looks great, dressed in a lovely sundress that ruffles a little when she stops. When he squints up at her beautiful face, the brim of a sunhat surrounds it like a straw halo.

“Was it someone I know?” she says. She doesn’t even sound disappointed, just tired.

“No,” Peter says from the bathroom floor. He’s afraid that if he tries to stand up, he might start to heave again. “It was—I made a mistake.”

“I can see that, Peter. I think... I think it’s too many mistakes, at this point.” She smiles down at him, which hurts far worse than if she would scream or cry. “We really... aren’t going to work out. I think that’s final. No... it _is_ final.”

What can he say? _Please forgive me, I’m sorry, I want to be everything you need, I want a family with you..._ He said that, when he came back from Miles’s dimension, and she gave him this second chance.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because that’s true. That’s the only true thing he should say.

She walks away, but not towards the door. He hears her in the kitchen, a cabinet opening, the fridge, getting the water pitcher and pouring him a glass.

MJ clicks back to the bathroom and sets the glass down on the tile in front of him. “Take better care of yourself, Tiger,” she says gently.

Then she really leaves.

*

“Listen, I’m just gonna ask this once, Mr. Parker.”

 _Uh oh,_ Peter thinks groggily, trying to open his eyes. “I’m just gonna ask this once” is the question that happens before he fires off a sassy one-liner and then gets shot in the ribs. And he’s all out of sassy one-liners.

He’s not wearing the mask or suit, which is also not ideal, and he’s... in a hospital?

“Oh, hey doc.” Peter squints at Dr. Rosenberg, a mutagenetic specialist he’s seen before at the Presybterian Hospital. “Fancy seeing you here... at the hospital.”

She smiles a little. “Here it goes, Mr. Parker. Were you trying to get yourself killed in that fight?”

Was he? Sounds like the kind of thing he might do... but not lately, not since...

Right, not since Miles.

No matter how guilty he is, he can’t shirk his responsibility to Miles’s development as Spider-Man. That didn’t change.

“No,” Peter says. His eyes switch from Dr. Rosenberg to his leg in traction. “That doesn’t look great.”

“Your leg bones were practically powder,” the doctor says, pulling up a rolling chair. “Not to mention the muscles and cartilage.”

“You should have seen the other guy.”

“I did. Sergei Kravinoff’s corpse has been transported to DC already, but they let me take some samples.”

“Oh.” Fragmented memories of the fight come back to him. “Well, there ya go.”

“If you weren’t Spider-Man, you’d have lost the leg for sure, of course... but you wouldn’t have made it alive to the hospital, either. As it is, you’re going to be our guest for a little while while your leg heals. We don’t want a repeat of the nose incident.”

Peter rubs the bend in his nose. “Yeah, I guess my leg bones growing back crooked wouldn’t just be an aesthetic no-no.”

“Quite. Glad to see you’re taking this reasonably.” She pulls up the tray on his bed and places a few objects on it: a remote control, a nurse call button, his phone, and the transdimensional texting gadget. “Someone else from the hospital will be along a little later to handle some more logistical issues for your stay.”

“I’m kinda hungry. Any chance of getting a pizza up here?”

“The hospital takes deliveries.” She winks at him and departs.

Peter calls in an order for a large pepperoni and watches television for a few minutes before the gadget buzzes.

 **Miles:** Didn't go. I'm gonna go tonight though. Wanna come with?

It’s a reply to a text Peter sent that morning.

 **Peter:** Sorry bud I got my leg caught in a trap by Kraven this morning, I'll be out of commission for a bit.

 **Miles:** You alright?

 **Peter:** Yeah I just chewed it off, pretty sure it'll grow back.

 **Miles:** Dang man make sure you get some calcium for those new bones then.

Peter smiles at the gadget. He can just picture Miles’s face... concerned, but also not about to take any shit from him.

 **Peter:** I'm on it, already ordered a pizza.

With Kingpin and Tombstone still in jail, Green Goblin dead, and Scorpion having moved on to merc work in Los Angeles, Miles’s dimension has been blessedly quiet. The boy’s had to tangle with his universe’s Doc Ock a few times, but the super-scientist doesn’t have any personal vendetta against the new Spider-Man. If anything, from what Miles said about the last time they tangoed, she just wants to capture him alive so she can examine—

A snarl comes from deep inside him before his conscious thoughts have caught up with the implications of what it would mean for the female alpha to have Miles restrained, helpless, unable to stop her from touching him everywhere.

 _Mine. He’s mine, I’ll_ destroy _anyone who hurts him. Only I can touch him._

Peter blows out a long, controlled breath.

*

The boy took an extended period of only communicating by text pretty well, and Peter decided to give it a try meeting in person again. In public, of course, doing something unambiguously hero-related; they would need to wait a lot more until they could hang out again...

But after a few attempts to meet up fell through, Peter began to realize that it was now Miles who was putting him off.

If it was that Miles didn’t want to be in contact with him anymore, he would have understood. But Miles was still initiating the texts most of the time. Miles was the one double and triple texting when Peter didn’t get back to his first text immediately.

Miles had been the first to text in their current session, too.

 **Miles:** You around Peter?

 **Peter:** Sure bud, what’s up?

He’s eating hot pot for one in Chinatown, having chased a small-time but quick-footed villain through Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge before finally tying him to a lamppost on Canal Street. He never leaves Chinatown without getting a meal.

 **Miles:** Nothing. I don’t know. Just wanted to talk.

 **Peter:** Anything cool happen on patrol lately?

 **Miles:** Just the usual. How about you?

 **Peter:** Nothing exciting. Done for today, having dinner.

 **Miles:** Tell me about your day anyway.

 **Miles:** Or the food, is it good?

Peter frowns at the interdimensional communicator and teleporter. This was exactly the kind of thing that had been niggling at him for a while. Miles never seemed to have anything to actually say, he never asked for advice on specific issues anymore, yet he was desperate to talk. He’d text and text and text, but the texts were lifeless.

The funny, sassy, challenging kid that Miles had always been, even in text form, was gone.

Miles sounds... depressed.

Suddenly Peter’s own appetite is gone. He puts his chopsticks down.

 **Peter:** Hot pot. It’s good in the winter to eat soup, right? It’s snowing here. What are they feeding you at that cafeteria?

 **Miles:** I think it was macaroni and cheese tonight? But they put cauliflower in it man, it’s gross.

Peter makes a face and laughs. He can only imagine how he would have reacted at seventeen if someone served him macaroni and cheese with cauliflower in it.

Maybe he’s overthinking this.

He picks his chopsticks back up.

Maybe he should just... check up on him. Miles won’t even have to know he came by. He’ll just pop in tonight, late but not too late, when Miles will definitely be in his room, and watch him a bit. Not in a creepy way...

Okay, it probably is creepy. But he means well, right?

*

 **Miles:** You know it's past eleven here right? I still got one day of school left man!

Miles’s roommate is playing video games with another kid, some kind of racing game. Miles isn’t in the room. Peter waited ten minutes to see if maybe Miles was in the bathroom, but no sign of him.

 **Peter:** Oh as if teachers ever try to get anything done the last day before vacation, nobody can focus then. I woke you up?

 **Miles:** Yes!!!

Peter’s fingers shift against the building.

Oh God. What if he hasn’t been texting with Miles?! What if Doc Ock got him and he’s been texting with _her_ this whole time, while Miles has been at the mercy of her claws—

_No. Don’t get ahead of yourself man. Miles could be lying for another reason._

Oh, and he is.

There’s a train crash in his head when he sees that body, that lithe young body that’s haunted his imagination, and his body is... he hears an echo of an even younger voice... _a different shape._

Peter sired a pup on him. Bred him. Miles is getting heavy and soft and his scent is sweetening and swelling because of _Peter’s pup..._

Peter’s alpha, his primal urges, has gotten out at a lope while his conscious mind is still returning only error messages, and Peter’s face breaks into a wide smile.

“Wow... A pup... I'm smelling me, us, that's... you smell different because of _our pup..."_ _Yes... yes, yes! I bred him, I fucked that_ _sw_ _eet little pussy so good, and it took, my seed took inside him, yes, yes, he’s carrying my pup, ours, he’s mine and his pup is mine and I’m keeping them, both of them are mine, he’s so good for me, my perfect omega is carrying my baby, our child, oh Miles!_

Miles looks so gorgeous smiling back at him like that. His omega closes the distance between them and Peter gets to hold him again and it’s bliss.

Until the rest of his brain breaks out of the shock.

Miles... Miles is a _kid,_ what the fuck is Peter _doing,_ acting like this is anything but a total catastrophe, that Miles is pregnant, that Miles is _this_ pregnant and standing there with his face gaunt and ashy like a plague victim, God, what the fuck has Peter done to him?!

“Holy shit—” He lets go of Miles fast, backs up and starts pacing. ”Oh God, fuck— _Fuck,_ Miles, why didn't you say—six months, it's gotta be almost six months—is abortion illegal in this New York, or something? It didn't even _occur_ to me—you could have come to _my_ New York, I would have helped you, but _six months_ , I don't think that's possible, not even, that's—but you already look so _bad_ like you haven't _slept_ for six months—if you had just said something, this is all my fault, oh my God, I've ruined your life—”

"Would you shut up?! This is exactly why I _didn't_ tell you, because I knew you'd want me to get rid of it and I knew you'd feel guilty—"

"It's not that I _want_ you to get rid of it!" Peter blurts and then mentally screams at himself. That he even has the _audacity_ to want Miles to have this pup, and then to let himself _say it!_

"Yes you do, you didn't want kids, you didn't want them with MJ—"

"I was _afraid!_ I was afraid because I thought I would be a bad father and I was _right,_ Miles!" He grabs onto the bedpost and struggles to keep himself from ripping it apart. "I was _trying_ to be a father figure to you and look what I've _done!"_

Miles crosses his arms, suddenly indignant. "My father—I never thought of you as my _father—_ I've _got_ a father, you're nothing like—a cool older brother, maybe, but not a _father—"_

How fucking messed up it all is. "I'm old enough to be your father. I'm twice your age, _more_ than that. All I wanted... I wanted to help you become the hero that I should have been and now... because I was weak, because I couldn't keep my dick in my pants—"

They keep arguing, Miles getting him sidetracked back into whose fault it is, when they’re _well past that_ now, _fuck._ "Fine, have it your way, I'm not responsible—you couldn't be responsible either because you're a _kid._ You're a kid, you're supposed to—you're supposed to be in that other room with that other kid—"

"Ganke."

"—that other kid, playing video games and eating junk and staying up too late on a school night, you're supposed to be making _that_ kind of bad decision. You shouldn't be pregnant, you can't handle this by yourself... you're not supposed...” God, Peter thinks, all of that, and Miles is chiefly worried about Peter blaming himself?! “You shouldn't be alone, when you're pregnant..."

"Yeah, well... I shouldn't be Spider-Man, either, but here I am. I got bit by a radioactive spider and then I got fucked by a Spider-Man."

Peter laughs before he can catch himself. "That's not—" _funny,_ he tries to stay sternly, can't do it, and then laughs again, but resigned. "Okay, it's funny, but..."

"You helped me," Miles says quietly. "Not just the heat, but I mean... I was out of my mind, dude. If I hadn't fixated on _you..._ If I'd just gone for some random alpha—"

 _Mine,_ roars the alpha instinct that Peter physically tenses to hold back. "I thought I told you before not to talk like that."

Miles shivers. Is he cold? Peter yearns to scoop him up, scent him, wrap him in blankets and himself. "Point is, I mean, I would have had the same problem only worse, but somebody else wouldn't be... it _couldn't_ be as good as it was with you, and..."

The scent in the air changes, and Peter’s tongue fidgets over his upper teeth as he realizes that Miles is getting slick. But the boy’s face is crumbling. Miles chokes out, “This is really messed up.”

“Oh, puppy,” Peter says, and embraces Miles again, murmuring wordlessly as he soothes his hands over Miles’s back, lets him cry into the spandex of his suit. He can’t understand what Miles is saying through his sobs. “Shhh.”

He leads Miles gently to his bed, scents him when the boy begs for it, tucks him in and commands him to shower off his scent and air the room in the morning.

Then he stays, as the boy’s breathing evens out and deepens. He should get up, at least to turn out the light.

Instead he stays for a good ten minutes just looking at Miles’s face. The sparse, subtle little freckles that dot his nose and upper cheeks, the ones you can only see up close like this. There aren’t a ton of them—in fact it looks like he could easily count them. So he does. Ten on his right cheek, four on his nose, six on his left cheek. Peter wants to kiss each one.

But Miles’s skin... Peter’s not a doctor, but Miles just doesn’t look healthy. The underlying colour... it’s off. His lips have this slight bluish cast to them, that’s the most “oh, that’s not good” sign, but just in general... he looks sick.

Leaving him like this... Peter hates it on every level.

But he needs to. He never should have gave in and scented the kid, he’s already risking the kid getting caught.

Peter lies to himself that he’s going to get up, turn the light off, and get back in bed with Miles. He knows it’s a lie, but it sufficiently shakes his yearning loose enough for him to get out of bed, turn off the light, and remind himself to _leave._

When he gets home, he takes off his suit to take a shower but pauses in the act.

It smells like Miles.

He throws it into the corner of the room and takes a cold shower.


	2. how come I end up where I went wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The embedded art is used with the kind permission of the artist, [Cloastra,](https://lavaaaa.lofter.com/post/1d5bd256_1c85d3544) who also has some PBP/MM fic (in Chinese) here on AO3 under the name [Clora,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clora/pseuds/Clora) and also takes some inspiration in the text from the original Chinese caption of the art, which I honestly think is better written than my fic, so you know, learn Chinese and read that instead of this, honestly. This fic is also dedicated to Clora! Thank you for all your PBPMM art!

Peter dreams that he’s being held over the collider beam by Miles again, everything the same, except that’s not the fourteen-year-old Miles. It’s the sixteen-year-old one, the face feverish with his first heat. Miles is pulling him up by the chest of his suit and it’s like it’s not just the fibres that are warping, it’s Peter’s heart that is changing shape in Miles’s hand.

Collision. Collision of particles, causing electricity. Collision of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, making water. Collision of tectonic plates, forming mountains. Collision of sperm and egg, creating a new organism.

Collision of Peter’s lips against Miles’s mouth as Miles brings them together. They both have their eyes open, Peter stunned, and Miles is... Miles is...

Before Peter can figure out the expression, Miles lets him go.

Peter wakes up with that jolting, sudden stop sensation that accompanies a dream ending while falling like that.

He puts his hand over his face and murmurs, “What?” aloud.

His phone says it’s past nine am already. Did he forget to set an alarm? Apparently so.

What a strange dream. What was his subconscious trying to process in it?

Other than that he wanted Miles to kiss him, which, yes, but also, not helpful, or, y’know, morally right, or anything...

Okay. So. Nine am (ish) on December 22nd. Miles’s winter break would start the next day and run through the 4th. He won’t be at school... will he go on vacation or a family visit? He might be sharing a room with someone again and the buzz from the transdimensional gadget might give him away. Peter quickly grabs it and texts Miles to ask if it’ll be safe to text him over break or not, then gets out of bed.

He gets dressed in street clothes, trying to think.

The gadget buzzes.

 **Miles:** We're going to my abuela's for Christmas and I don't know where I'll be sleeping. Don't text me first, okay.

 **Peter:** Okay.

Reading back over the little exchange makes him queasy. It sounds so predatory...

_Well it fucking is predatory, genius. You’re asking your underage babydaddy how to avoid getting caught by his parents._

He goes down to the Starbucks on the same block and orders a drip coffee with double cream, a bacon and egg sandwich, and a danish, then hangs back waiting for his order, thinking.

Miles saving him, Miles letting him go.

There’s a bittersweet pang. Yes, Miles will need to really let him go...

How can he help Miles do that?

Helping Miles—that needs to be his number one priority right now. Miles, and the pup...

How to help, how to help...

First do no harm, right?

They spent way too much time yesterday, by which Peter means any at all, with Miles trying to convince Peter that Peter hadn’t done something horrible. Miles got so distressed and stubborn about it.

Okay, that’s number one. Miles can’t be worrying about _Peter,_ for fuck’s sake. That’s so goddamn backwards it isn’t even funny. There’s no time to waste trying to convince Miles to properly blame Peter, either.

It’s gotta be set to the side for now, the whole issue, everything about Peter’s feelings. Peter can beat himself up on his own time. If he lets Miles see him doing it, then Miles is gonna try to reassure him, and be stressed for him.

“Pierre,” calls out a barista, and after glancing around to see that nobody else steps forward, Peter steps up to see that yep, it’s his coffee, sandwich, and danish.

He pops the lid off the coffee when he sits down, blows on it, and takes a tentative sip, and still burns his fucking tongue anyway. He cools it off with a bite of danish.

Peter texts Miles again, even though he’s probably gone to class by now.

 **Peter:** I've been thinking and it's not fair for me to burden you with my guilt about this. We won't talk about my guilt anymore, okay? Just focus on what I can do to help you.

“Well I’m not getting any younger,” a plump middle-aged woman with a loud voice says to her companion as they take seats at the next table. “I mean, I gotta think about being around for my kids in ten years, right?”

“Good for you,” her companion says, just as loud. “I don’t think I could get through the holidays doing your diet. I mean, do you take cheat days?”

“Well, I’ve been doing it for six months now, so I got through Thanksgiving and my birthday. I don’t think I can do cheat days. It’s about discipline, you know? And you gotta know yourself. Cheat days probably work for some people but this is the longest I’ve ever stayed on a diet and I don’t want to go back to how it was before, now that I’m halfway to my goal.”

“Good for you,” the companion says again.

Peter chews another bite of danish silently.

Diet, discipline, being around for your kids in ten years.... Jesus H. Christ. Could the multiverse just let him eat his sandwich please.

Peter finishes the coffee, the sandwich, and the danish, but when he goes back upstairs to his apartment, he stands in the kitchen for a moment looking out the window, and then suddenly starts pulling bottles of beer and spirits out and setting them by the sink.

He takes a deep breath, opens one, and begins pouring it down the drain.

*

 **Miles:** You at a party or something, or can you talk?

Not an unreasonable question at close to eleven pm New Year’s Eve. Peter squints down at the entrance to the dockside area where a gang is planning to use the cover of the midnight fireworks to perform an ambush on some rivals. Some, but not all, of the people he needs to stop have arrived.

 **Peter:** You could say I’m at a party uninvited. But I can talk for now.

 **Miles:** Man I wish I was there helping you out. I’m holed up in the bathroom here going crazy man. I might need you as a character witness for when I murder my cousin.

 **Peter:** Sure I’ll say despite being part spider you wouldn’t hurt a fly. What’s the cousin trouble?

 **Miles:** She been playing the Spider-Man Christmas album NON STOP since we got here. If she’s not playing it she’s singing it. I did okay the first 72 hours but I just ain’t having it anymore man! I’m seriously cracking! And my other relatives are all like oh it’s Christmas and she’s only eight. She’s never gonna get to nine if I have to hear Spidey Bells one more time.

Peter snorts.

 **Peter:** The other me did have a nice voice.

 **Miles:** NOT YOU TOO

 **Miles:** Did you put out a Christmas album in your universe?

 **Peter:** I think even autotune can only go so far.

 **Miles** **:** Hey, this is maybe a little more serious, but how do you make money and be Spider-Man. I don’t know if I can do the merch thing like my Peter Parker did.

“And raise a kid” was probably appended there.

 **Peter:** Why don’t you think you could have merch?

 **Miles:** Man you’ve heard me sing. Plus I haven’t done anything cool yet that people know about. People still want the good Spider-Man back.

Peter winces.

Yeah, the good Spider-Man. The one who didn’t need to be nagged and guilted into training Miles, but who volunteered it immediately. The one who really committed to his Mary-Jane, who would never have been tempted by Miles’s heat-scent because he had a pair-bond. The one with an amazing underground hide-out instead of a shed with a futon that probably had rats nesting inside it right now. The blond blue-eyed one with the straight nose who died when he was only twenty-six.

Jesus. It’s always like getting flicked in the forehead, to be reminded that his entire life he’s actually been the evil twin, the cursed doppelgänger, the goateed Spock, of a better version of himself in another dimension.

Down below, a Rolls-Royce pulls up and the driver gets out to open the backseat to let out a man in a yellow suit with a rose on the lapel.

 **Peter:** I think the party here’s about to really heat up, kid. Talk to you later. Happy New Year.

*

After he arranges for Miles to come visit for the first time since... _that_ time, Peter knows he needs to get ready.

Not his apartment—it’s basically fine, Miles has seen it way worse—but himself.

First, get out some energy with a good clean patrol. And none of this “pick a rooftop and wait” stuff. No, he’s gonna swing to goddamn Montauk and back if that’s what it takes until he finds some action.

When he gets back to his apartment he’s feeling pretty good about himself. He makes an order on his computer for some Chinese delivery—a large mapo tofu and brown rice, because he’s making healthy choices today—and gets in the shower.

Second... wash.

And while he’s in the shower, it’s a good time to, y’know. Spank the monkey. Choke the chicken. Jack the beanstalk. Play a little five on one. Masturbate.

The conundrum is what to fantasize about when he does it. Because the more he tells himself that he shouldn’t fantasize about Miles, that to do so would be immoral and disgusting and taboo and just very, very _naughty..._

The more his dick twitches.

“Who the fuck am I kidding,” Peter mutters aloud as he works his hand on himself faster, closing his eyes, leaning his forehead against the tile while the water hits his back.

Those _noises_ the kid made, and how he looked at his cock like it was the most beautiful prize he’d ever laid those big eyes on. _Fuck._ And how was it possible for him to be that slick yet that _tight._ Oh God. Peter breathes fast and shallow, picturing how Miles’s asshole was practically winking at him the way the boy was clenching, how it sucked noisily on his _fingertip_ it was so tight. But he opened up for him so well, he was a _natural,_ taking his fingers, stretching open, and then moulding around his cock.

Perfect fit.

His hand is really nothing like it, it doesn’t encase him like Miles did, there’s no precious, beloved one attached to it, lying back on his bed and gripping his thighs, displaying himself to Peter, silently begging for him as Peter covers his mouth to stifle those lewd noises, but those honey-amber eyes keep asking so sweetly for his _knot._

“Miles,” Peter gasps as he comes. “Oh, ooooh God, Miles, oh puppy, you’re so good baby, you’re so _good._ I fucking _love_ you.”

Peter opens his eyes as he moves his hand down to grip his knot, always the worst part about masturbating. He should really get a knotting toy, even though they were depressing and nasty to clean.

He pulls the shower head out to spray the wall clean more, before any of it has a chance to get stuck on.

Peter finishes actually washing himself, gets out of the shower, rubs himself down with a towel, and then looks at himself as he wraps the towel around his waist.

He looks like a tired middle-aged man. Which he is, so he can’t claim any shock.

Muscles, yeah, but flab on top of them. The grey at the temples has gotten bigger—should he do something about that? At least his hairline hasn’t receded yet. Peter puts a hand to his stubble. Should he shave again? He could swear his facial hair did not grow this fast when he was younger. Maybe he should just grow a beard. After all, he does live in Brooklyn now.

He gets dressed and calls down to the doorman.

“Hey Jamal, it’s Peter in 24B. Did my Chinese food get there yet? I was in the shower, so if you buzzed me, I missed it.”

“Yes Mr. Parker, I’ve got it at the desk here. You want me to bring it up for you?”

“No, I’ll come down and get it, it’s no problem. Also, I’m gonna have a visitor in a bit, his name is Miles, black kid, about eighteen, so if you see him ringing the bell, let him in.”

“You got it, Mr. Parker.”

*

 _Well,_ Peter thinks to himself when he’s tied in Miles later that same evening, _that certainly didn’t work one goddamn bit._

“Three times isn’t much different than four,” Miles said, with his cheek rubbing on Peter through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “You don’t have to fuck me,” Miles said, tilting up his face just so, getting his fingertips slippery in Peter’s precum.

Jesus _Christ._ How could he never say _no_ to Miles about anything.

Miles is just so... so... so...

So _Miles._

Utterly adorable in every way. So much fun. And now, now that he was growing up, he just _had_ to turn out to be sexy as _hell_ too. It ought to make him sick, it ought to, it ought to.

They’re tied together, though.

Peter’s not going anywhere.


	3. and as I stare I counted the webs from all the spiders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: some pregnancy associated feminization.

Peter puts the 3d ultrasound picture up on his fridge. Then takes it down. Then puts it back up again.

Damn it, he really, really wants to have the picture up somewhere where he can look at it all the time. He wants to see that sepia toned image of a little face in profile, one tiny hand spread against his ear, the other just in front of his mouth, every morning when he comes into the kitchen.

But at the same time it makes him feel so damn guilty to see it. He should not be thrilled to look at it, he does not deserve to pretend like he’s a normal happy father-to-be. Not when the pregnancy not only never should have happened in the first place, but the pregnant parent is currently under enormous stress in another dimension, where Peter can’t even help him.

In the end he decides to leave the picture up, at least when nobody’s over. It’s a reminder to keep going with his diet, with his discipline in life generally. A reminder of the stakes.

Peter steps back with a green smoothie and looks at the picture while he drinks it.

He just can’t shake his worry that something bad’s gonna happen to Miles in the other dimension. Maybe it’s partially just alpha instinct, to want to have the omega carrying your pup close. But there’s a damn rationally based element to the fears, too. What are the odds that with _two_ Spider-Parents that the pup doesn’t have some kind of unusual genes? There’s no telling how and when that could manifest. And even if Miles was looking more like his old self in last night’s visit, there are so many ways this pregnancy could go wrong. And yet Miles is all alone over there, no way to find help.

Peter needs to look for help for him.

*

“So, as I recall, on the balance, you owe me a couple favours,” says Peter.

Nick Fury just stares at him, face neutral.

Peter raises his eyebrows. “Oh, wow, you’re actually admitting you owe me favours.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know, that’s how you admit things.”

Fury snorts. “Cut to it, Parker.”

“You remember the collider incident I reported to SHIELD.”

“Yeah. Still got people researching it. More cross-dimensional threats to national security... like this damn universe ain’t enough.”

“Okay, right, so... the source of that incident’s universe, Earth-1610, the kid who became the new Spider-Man there, Miles Morales... we uh... I was with him in an unexpected heat and there’s a pup on the way now.”

“I’ll be damned. Congratulations? Or not, since you’re here talking about calling in favours.”

“He may not be able to have the pup safely in his universe,” Peter says. “His identity is still secret and his universe doesn’t have anyone for him to reach out to for help. He might need to flee. I want you to get him an identity so he can come here if he needs to.”

“What about the glitching thing?”

“Even the glitching thing takes some time to start up and get bad. I had to be in his universe a continuous week before I had the first glitch. Anyway, I’ll be looking into other stuff about that. Probably talk to Strange.”

“New identity... yeah, it wouldn’t be difficult. You got a picture?”

Peter holds out the copies he made of Miles’s student ID photo. “Will this work?”

Fury looks at the photo. “That a high school uniform? How old is this kid?”

“He turned nineteen on September 11,” Peter lies.

Fury regards him steadily for a little while, then says in a cold way, “I won’t ask anymore questions about how old he is, but this clears any and all favours I might owe you, Parker. I’m gonna choose to believe he was capable of consenting to sex and this was all a one-off heat mistake anyway. But if I hear one motherfucking _breath_ of a rumour in the future regarding you touching any goddamn kids, I will come down on you like the hand of God, got it?”

“I agree completely,” Peter says seriously.

*

It shouldn’t fucking turn him on this much, seeing Miles’s belly, how blatantly _pregnant_ he is, at night when they’re getting undressed and the kid takes off his shirt and pants and then pauses, just _pauses,_ giving him that goddamn _hopeful_ look.

Peter doesn’t like his apartment too warm and Miles’s nipples are pebbling up, they’re bigger and darker than they used to be, the tissue around it a little puffy, almost feminine. Peter’s avoided commenting on them because he doesn’t know how Miles feels about them, about any of the feminizing changes of pregnancy to his body. His already amazing hips, ass, and thighs are getting even thicker, too. Peter loves all of it, but Peter’s to _blame_ for all of it.

“The doctor said it was normal,” Miles says.

Peter blinks. “What?”

“The line,” Miles says, and rubs self-consciously at his belly. There’s a thin dark colouration running straight down from Miles’s chest through his belly button and down to his crotch. “Weren’t you staring at it?”

“No,” says Peter, “I was just looking at you.”

“Oh. Well... uh, like I said, he said it was normal and it’ll go away after the pup comes. Said it was some hormonal thing. Uh... the nipples, too...”

“I don’t think it looks bad,” Peter says. _Understatement._

“Uh, thanks. Do you, um... do you want to, tonight, or...?”

 _I want to every goddamn night for the rest of my life,_ is caught on his tongue. He doesn’t trust his mouth to say anything appropriate, as if there’s even anything appropriate to say to the seventeen-year-old boy who’s snuck out of his dorm to cross the boundaries of his universe just to lie in your arms.

So instead he just drops his briefs, lets Miles get distracted at the sight of his cock, so he won’t notice how Peter can’t stop looking at him with something way more than just lust.

Miles gets so excited, seeing Peter hard, as if he’s still surprised by it, which can’t be possible. It must just be teenage libido, Peter simply the only outlet. The omega wriggles off his own underwear and hurries onto the bed, spreading his knees wide, canting his hips up, open, so his cheeks spread and reveal the little hole within to Peter, already glistening with slick. Miles’s cock is hard and pointing straight down, and Miles has one hand on it, rubbing it.

“Peter,” he whimpers, humping his hips a little in the air against his hand, glancing back over his shoulder, amber eyes begging him.

Peter can never resist Miles’s eyes.

“I’m here baby,” he says, gets up behind him, presses over him with his body, caging him in, scent marking him. Peter rubs the goosebumps on Miles’s forearms as he rocks his dick back and forth between his cheeks, feeling the slick start to drip out onto him. He presses a kiss to the top of Miles’s spine, runs his tongue up the back of his neck to just under his ear.

Peter wants to say more, he wants to say so much. _You gorgeous thing. You’re p_ _erfect. I love you so much it scares me to death. Just look at you, carrying my pup, making it look so good, so pretty, you’re so goddamn strong, Miles. I adore you, omega. Wanna sink my teeth in you and make you mine forever. Keep you. Keep you. Keep you._

He can’t, he can’t keep Miles, can’t really cage him and hold him back. For this brief time he can give Miles some pleasure, along with the scenting his body needs. Then the pup will come, and Peter will do whatever he can to help there. And eventually Miles will go out into the world, find someone better.

So Peter doesn’t say any of those things as he spreads Miles open, as he sinks into his amazing body, as he fucks him. He only says meaningless things, uncommitted things. “That’s so good, puppy.” “Mmm, fuck, your little pussy’s so tight.” “Yeah, let me fuck it, just like that.”

The orgasm’s still so good, the lasting high from knotting a real person’s still exquisite. But as Peter nuzzles and licks at Miles as they lay knotted together, his heart hurts.

*

“You seek entrance to the Sanctum Sanctorum?” intones a voice on the other side of the door of a townhouse in the Village.

“Tell Strange I brought kebabs if he wants some,” Peter says, scratching the back of his neck.

“I will so inform the Supreme Sorceror,” says the voice.

When Peter gets in to see Dr. Strange, the man is levitating upside down inside a silver halo of light.

“So it is a yes or no on the kebabs?” Peter says, sitting on some kind of bumpy ottoman and opening the take-out bag.

“Why kebabs?” says Strange. “You always get pizza when you come here. From that place that fired you.”

“I’m trying to diet.” Peter pulls out a skewer of chicken. “You seriously remember that Joe’s fired me? That was almost twenty years ago. Had we even met?”

“Because you think about it every time. You would complain to yourself that you don’t know why you keep giving them your money, and then you would admit that the pizza was just that good, and then you would brood over the memory of being fired again. And before you complain about me reading your mind, I’ve told you, some people’s thoughts are just loud.”

“And I’m some people, huh?”

“Possibly the loudest thoughts I’ve ever encountered.”

“Explains a lot,” Peter mutters, then pulls a chunk of chicken off the skewer with his teeth and chews it.

“I’ll have one of the beef skewers,” Strange says, still upside down in his glowing aura.

“Yeah I’ll save one. So I’ll explain why I’m here, if my brain didn’t already yell at you too much about it.”

Peter tells Strange about his worries for Miles, who may need to change dimensions to avoid one set of dangers, only to run into a whole other set of risks from glitching. When he’s done, Strange closes his eyes.

“I’ll think about it,” the levitating man says.

Peter waits a moment, then says, “Uh, well, I’ll just leave you to that, then. Where do you want me to put your kebab?”

“Place it on that _famille-rose_ dish.”

“The what now?”

Strange sighs. “The plate with the flowers on it. On the table.”

 _Famee-hrose, he says, like that’s a thing,_ Peter thinks as he fishes the beef kebab out and puts it on the plate.

“It _is_ a thing.”

“Stop reading my mind!”

*

In February, Miles shows up at his door with an overstuffed gym bag, fighting back tears.

From what Miles is saying, his parents and everyone in his life are just doing the best they can based on what they know. They’re trying to protect a kid from being exploited.

Peter can’t figure out any way to clear it up, not without exposing Miles to a whole other set of dangers from having his identity possibly get out big-time. There’s no telling how even the government of Miles’s world might react if they knew his identity, much less villains; and there’s the wrinkle of not just exposing Miles as Spider-Man, but exposing Miles as Spider-Man _and an omega._

So Peter has a new... roommate. Ish. Bed partner? How to explain what they were to each other?

For the first time since the heat, they spend the night in the same room without anything occurring but sleep. Back before Miles presented, after they figured out how to cross dimensions on purpose, Miles came to sleep over a few times, starting back when Peter was still in that crappy bedsit... actually, come to think of it, he can remember first getting the crystallized thought _“That’s it, I need to move”_ after one of those sleepovers, because they could hear neighbours having loud sex while the odor of marijuana drifted from the fire escape.

 _I can’t be exposing Miles to this,_ Peter thought back then. Oh boy. If he’d only known what he’d be exposing Miles to in only a year’s time.

Miles doesn’t dawdle with his clothes off now, doesn’t shoot Peter pleading looks with his hand on Peter’s knee, like it would be _such_ a huge favour if Peter would let Miles suck his dick but could he _please_ let him suck it, just this once? He emerges from the bathroom already in pajamas, or he goes to bed while Peter is still out patrolling.

Part of Peter hopes that this is the beginning of the end, that Miles has realized what he’s had to give up because of what Peter did to him, and is starting to get rightfully resentful about it. That once the pup is born and Miles doesn’t need Peter’s scent, the transition to Miles having a new, independent existence will be gradual and easy for the kid.

Peter’s already hinted to Miles about college. Every day he debates with himself: _should I mention to him that I can retire from being Spider-Man to watch the pup full-time, while he goes to school?_ Or will Miles experience that as rushing him to become a student before he’s ready? After all, having a baby is a big deal, even with childcare—pairing an infant with starting college can’t be easy. Or, worse, will Miles start trying to insist that this situation isn’t Peter’s fault, that Miles doesn’t want to wreck Peter’s life? Would he start trying to make alternate plans to “spare” Peter from “having” to watch the pup?

In the meantime, at least he can indulge himself shamelessly with all the non-sexual spoiling of his pregnant omega his heart desires. The kid’s favourite ice cream shares space in the freezer with Peter’s green smoothie kits. Peter buys a new video game console and games for it as if he just wanted to do it anyway. Scenting, of course, is a multiple times a day necessity. Also, Miles’s feet and ankles swell a little, so Peter gives him foot rubs.

It’s an innocent foot rub that leads to the incredible accusation from Miles that he thinks Peter’s not attracted to him. And not just some kind of temporary pregnancy body image thing, either, as hard as that would have been to accept, but Miles thinks Peter never liked him like that _at all._

It’s so absurd and upside-down that in trying to make sense of it, Peter allows it to come out that he’s not only attracted to Miles but seriously in love with the kid, to the point of wanting to pair-bond him.

Is Miles just, like, walking xylazanine to his brain? Maybe some kind of ray weapon that he shoots from those starry eyes of his?

So they’re dating. If you’re cohabitating with someone you’re dating, then that’s not just newly dating, right? That’s boyfriend level. And that boyfriend is pregnant with your kid? That’s _partner_ level.

Peter quietly freaks out about this in the shower for so long that the water gets cold and Miles bangs on the door to ask if he’s alive in there.

Like a lot of couples, when he and MJ split up, there was an unspoken “who gets each friend” sort of deal, and Peter being Peter, he let MJ have _all_ the friends—all the ones who were still alive, anyway. There was really only Strange, whose... friendship? with him was, well, strange, and then Tony Stark, who Mary Jane always found a little irritatingly flamboyant anyway.

Should he... text them?

He should text MJ, at least, right? Because if Miles wants to be taken on dates—God, what a weird thought—it might get in the news.

Peter gets out of the shower.

“Sorry, my mind was wandering,” he tells Miles.

“I made you one of your nasty ass smoothies,” Miles says.

Peter drinks the smoothie and works on composing a text to MJ.

_You remember that omega heat you smelled_

Nope, nope, not starting with that.

_Hey MJ, just if the press gets a hold of it, I’ve started dating someone. It’s pretty serious, we’re expecting a baby toget_

Just rub her face in it, right? God. After all those years of telling MJ that they’d have a baby “someday, when the time is right, when I’m ready.” When MJ finally gives up on him—suddenly he’s ready? He’s gonna break the news of all that at once, in a text? Peter can’t stand the idea of smashing her heart like that all over again.

Maybe he can break it to her a little at a time. Today, _I’ve started dating again, wanted you to know in case the press reports on it._ Next week, _I’ve gotten serious with someone, he’s an omega guy and his name is Miles._ Two weeks, _Miles and I are living together._ Three weeks, _Miles and I are having a baby._

Part of him mutters darkly that this is just a matter of shoving the knife in all at once or slowly, because _I’m having the family you once wanted so badly for us with someone else_ is not going to be unshocking news for MJ, whether it’s delivered in one text or four texts over the course of a month. The single text might well be kinder.

But Peter just can’t bring himself to do it.

 **Peter:** I just wanted to let you know, if the press reports on it, I’ve started dating again.

He gets a reply from MJ pretty quickly.

 **MJ:** That’s swell Peter but I’m in a Broadway show right now so please look at the clock next time before you text me

Peter looks at the time. 8:30am. Oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you noticed a theme of late 90s/early 2000s alt-rock, pop punk, emo, and emo-adjacent music? That's the soundtrack of Peter B Parker based on his age, as somebody who was probably born around 1980. Explains a lot, really.
> 
> Marvel Extended universe characters are based mostly on my vague ideas of someone who has seen some movies and cartoons sometimes.


	4. it isn't the love of a hero and that's why I fear it won't do

“Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

Miles blinks at Peter from the other side of the booth at a taco joint. “We _are_ out to dinner. I mean, I know I’m pregnant, but I still only need one dinner.”

Peter laughs. “No, not tonight, I mean... Later, someplace nice.” He fidgets with the little bottle of Valentina on the table, pushing the hot sauce back and forth. “I’m asking now because you’d probably need to get nicer clothes.”

“Oh... like, a _nice_ nice place?” Miles picks up a napkin and wipes his face, then looks down, but not at his single remaining taco. He’s looking at his belly. “Um... wouldn’t it be a waste of money to buy a suit that I’ll only fit into for another month?”

“I’m not saying you’d have to get a whole _suit,”_ Peter says. “Maybe just a polo shirt and some khakis? And shoes. For shoes, your school uniform shoes would work...”

Peter can’t help but notice a woman standing waiting for her take-out order raise her eyebrows sharply at hearing the words _school uniform shoes._ She glances at Miles’s pregnant belly and gives Peter a dirty look. Peter rubs at the back of his neck, feeling his ears burning. Yeah, he deserved that dirty look.

Miles mumbles, “My uniform shoes are kinda tight right now. Plus... I don’t know, man.”

Peter forces his attention back only on Miles. “What?”

“I guess I’m worried I’d embarrass you. I mean, like, you’re talking someplace _fancy_ in the city, right?”

“We don’t have to do it, but there’s no way you could ever embarrass me, Miles. I was just thinking that once the pup comes it’ll be impossible for us to have a quiet dinner at a place like that for a long time, until he’s old enough for a sitter. I just...” Peter hears the woman make a disgusted _you-know-I-can-hear-you_ noise, but pushes on anyway. “If you’re gonna date me, I want to give you, y’know, _nice_ dates. Not just—”

“Hold on a sec, Peter. Hey, mind your own business, lady.”

“I didn’t say anything to you,” the woman says, and then mutters, _“Puta cazafortuna.”_

This doesn’t mean anything to Peter, but apparently does to Miles, because he says something angry back in rapid-fire Spanish, and suddenly the woman and Miles are talking over each other.

“Hey, hey, hey, your order’s here, okay, watch your language in the restaurant please,” says a staff member, and the lady takes her order and leaves in a huff.

Miles, still pissed, picks up his soda and drinks it.

“Uh... do you want to go?”

“No,” Miles huffs, setting the plastic cup down with a disgruntled thunk. “I still have one taco left.”

“...Do you wanna tell me what that was about, or should we just forget about it?”

“She just called me a stupid golddigger and stuff.” Miles picks up his taco. “Guess she didn’t expect me to know Spanish. I hate that type. Wants to be all up in everybody’s business but can’t stand being called out on it.”

Peter eats a forkful of curtido as Miles eats his taco, then says, “Hey.”

When Miles meets his eyes, Peter continues, “I mean it. I’d never find you embarrassing.”

Miles takes a little too large of a bite to finish the taco, making his cheeks go all chipmunk as he chews it. He hides his face partway with a napkin and laughs once he’s swallowed. “You sure man? _I_ embarrass me.”

 _That’s because you’re young._ It’s on the tip of his tongue. He should say it. He shouldn’t say it. _You’re so, so young Miles, and you think you’re a mess, but you’re not. You’re already amazing and you’re only just getting started._

“I guess you gonna say it’s ‘cause I’m young,” Miles says guilelessly.

“It’s partially that,” Peter hedges. “You... I mean, you _are_ young. Things hit harder when you’ve got less experience, and other people’s opinions seem more important...”

“So it’s really true that when you get older you don’t care what people think?”

“Yes and no, I guess. I definitely can’t say I don’t get bothered by what people think. But it’s better than when I was a teenager.”

Miles nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Well... you do have a good point, that it’ll be hard to go someplace fancy with a baby. Probably need new shoes, anyway.”

*

“Buddy pal!”

Peter nearly misses his landing. “Jesus, Deadpool, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Oh. The dudes with the guns?”

“No, I’m hunting for Easter eggs— _yes_ the guys with the guns, by the way, duck.”

They duck, and a volley of machine gun fire smashes above their heads.

“Ouchie,” says Deadpool mournfully, and a hole at the top of his mask reveals that one of the bullets must have grazed the top of his head. Peter doesn’t worry about it, though. He’s seen Deadpool shrug off worse. “They seem like some real meanie-faces. Ruining a guy’s egg hunt.” He stands up. “Hey, jackasses! Don’t you know it’s Easter?!”

A few minutes later, the problem is cleared up, but many more of the gangsters are now corpses than would have been the case if Peter had handled it solo, so Peter’s not exactly feeling grateful for the help.

“Creme egg?” says Deadpool, holding a fist out.

Peter takes the offered object, and it’s an honest to God Cadbury creme egg, only slightly smushed. “Where did... you know what, I don’t care. Here, you can have it back, I’m on a diet.”

Deadpool pulls up the bottom of his mask long enough to pop the chocolate egg into scarred mouth. “Thankth fren,” he says with his mouth full.

“It was your egg in the first place. And we’re not friends. Jesus, look what you did to this guy’s face.” Peter turns that particular body—what’s left of it—face down. “What do you want?”

“You’re always playing hard to get,” Deadpool says in a tone of admiration and rests his cheek on his fist, elbow on his other hand. “I just wanna _get_ , Spidey.”

“Oh my God,” Peter groans, and starts walking away, not wanting to have this conversation, whatever the hell it’s going to be, in the earshot of some tied-up criminals who are probably already traumatized for life by the way they just saw their comrades get sliced up by swords and who knows what else. “I had it handled in the first place.”

“But I like helping,” Deadpool whines, chasing after him. “Please please please please please—”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“Hmm, if you put it that way, then, _hell_ no. I’m gonna say just one more time, why are you here?!”

“Because I wanted to tell you about how helpful I’ve been! With people getting ideas about your new sweetie—”

 _Sweetie_ is now definitely not a name Miles needs to worry about being called. “MJ and I are _handling_ it like adults, I didn’t need—”

“Oh, not _her,_ nothing that bad, no no no no no. Just some villains.”

Peter stops short and Deadpool runs into his back. He turns around. “Some what?”

“Oh, you know the circles I run in as a merc.” Deadpool points two fingers on one hand down in a “running legs” gesture while rotating the index finger of the other hand around it in a circle. He stares at his own hands in delight. “Whoa, hey, look, I’m actually doing it! I thought this would be like that pat your head and rub your tummy thing. Am I just that awesome? Wait, maybe I can do the other thing too now.”

“Focus. Villains?” Peter waves a hand at the merc.

Deadpool stops rubbing his head and his tummy. “Right, you know, just bounties for Spider-Man’s kid. Some just garden variety revenge, but most of them I think the idea is that you got a pretty sweet set of genes to pass on, and if the pup inherits them, that’s a future super-soldier.”

Peter’s hands form into fists. “Okay. Yeah, you are actually being helpful to me here. Can I get some names?”

“Huh?” Deadpool lifts his hands in the “relax” gesture. “Nah, nah, buddy, I told you, this is just _villains,_ it wasn’t a big deal! I took care of ‘em for ya.”

“You... took care of them? Like... killed them, or what?”

“Psh, it wasn’t hard, they never saw it coming! Here, I took some pics. Here...” Deadpool pulls out his phone and holds it up, starts swiping through photos. “This guy... and his friends... and there was this dude... I never liked _this_ lady, to be honest... also this.” It’s a selfie of Deadpool doing a v-sign in front of a burning compound of buildings in some tropical location. “May, uh, may have started one of them ‘international incidents’ with this one, but how important can an ambassador be, really.”

“You... eliminated _everyone_ who was trying to kidnap my kid?”

“Oh, sure, man, what are friends for? It’s what I do best, my dude. Not like handling an ex-wife. Brrrr.” Deadpool shivers.

Peter blinks. “...Thanks, Wade.”

Deadpool’s big eye holes stare at him for a moment, silent, then he begins to jump up and down with excitement. “Oh my God! Oh honey! I always knew we were friends, but did we just become _best_ friends?!”

“We’re not fri-”

“New profile pic!” crows Deadpool and crowds Peter into a selfie. “Thanks! We look amazing! See ya later, best pal!”

Peter’s phone buzzes as Deadpool disappears over the edge of a roof.

_@Deadpool69 tagged you in a photo._

Peter’s masked but still obviously bewildered face next to Deadpool’s triumphant, slightly blood-splattered one.

_@Deadpool69: LIVING WITH MY BITCHES HASHTAG LIT @SpiderManOfficial_

*

It’s the night before Miles’s scheduled c-section and Peter can’t sleep.

It actually surprises him, because fortunately, and maybe even incredibly, given the amount of shit he’s seen, he doesn’t often have trouble sleeping. And he hadn’t thought he was going to have trouble sleeping this night, either, except Miles told him about what name Miles wanted to give the pup.

Parker Morales.

Just like learning that the baby was a boy, and then seeing a picture of the ultrasound, and then being in the room during an ultrasound and actually seeing the pup _move_ on video, had each progressively made this more real to Peter, putting a name on the kid—the one that is coming out of Miles’s body in less than twelve hours—has progressed it again.

Peter looks at Miles. The blankets are hiding his body, but still. There’s genuinely an entire new _person_ in there, mere hours from breathing on his own. A child named Parker Morales.

He’s not just going to be Peter Parker, this time tomorrow. He’s going to be a dad. Parker Morales’s dad.

Or, wait... maybe Miles wants to use the name _dad._ They never talked about _that,_ either.

Miles did _everything_ for this kid so far. Peter’s contribution was getting his rocks off a couple of times. Miles should absolutely have first pick of the parent names.

Peter gently shakes Miles awake, because suddenly the question of what name he’s going to go by seems like the most important thing ever.

“Huh? Whazit?” Miles says, putting a hand up to block Peter.

“Do you want Parker to call you dad, or what?”

Miles opens his eyes briefly then closes them again. “Donchu wann’ be dad?” he says, still groggy.

“You should get to be called whatever you want,” Peter says. “And I’ll go by whatever you want too.”

“Y’can be dad,” Miles says, and then yawns something that Peter can’t make out around the yawn.

“Huh?”

“M’tired,” Miles says.

“No but this is _important,”_ Peter insists. “What do _you_ want to be called, Miles?”

For a moment Miles’s face is still, and Peter thinks he’s gone back to sleep, but then one of the kid’s arms shifts under the blanket. It grabs Peter’s hand, moves it onto the swell of his abdomen gently.

“Papa,” Miles says, not opening his eyes, but smiling. “I wanna be...” Another little yawn. “Papa.”

Inside Miles, Parker kicks against Peter’s hand, but Miles doesn’t react. He must be used to it... nearly nine months he’s been growing Parker inside him...

Peter’s heart swells again with sheer admiration and awe. “I love you, Miles,” he says, and his heart seizes a bit. _Oh wow. Oh my God, this is the first time I said actually I love you out loud, what a big moment._

Miles doesn’t react.

“Hey.” Peter shifts his head forward and nudges against Miles’s forehead with his own. “I just said _I love you_ the first time, you can’t sleep through that.”

“I can so,” Miles yawns. “’m _tired.”_

“Geez,” mutters Peter, but he’s smiling too.

*

There’s a little curtain going across Miles’s chest, and from behind it, a doctor lifts a tiny baby.

It feels like time stops. Peter has forgotten how to breathe. He’s not sure his heart is still beating. Miles digs into his palm with his fingernail, and Peter realizes that he’s gripping the omega’s hand like a vice again.

They put some kind of suction tool to the baby’s face, pull it away, and the baby makes a distressed, liquidy noise.

“Time of birth, 8:04am,” someone says, and someone else says, “Do you want to cut the cord?” looking at Peter.

“Can I?!” Peter looks down at Miles for permission, and Miles has this big grin on his face.

“Yeah, sure. Pretty sure if you can handle a goober you can cut a cord.”

“Okay, we just give it a minute or so for it to stop pulsing, and then you cut it. You can get ready to scent him in the meantime,” says a doctor.

“How do I do that, what do I do?” Is he babbling? Peter feels like he’s babbling.

“Just take the gown off. This is why we told you not to wear a shirt.”

The doctors are being amazingly patient with how stupid he’s being. Peter’s gonna send them all fruit baskets.

He fumbles with the ties of the surgical gown and gives it to somebody or other, and then he’s handed something that looks like a weird pair of scissors and told where to cut through what looks like a clear rubber hose. It actually takes more than one attempt to snip, more of a saw than a clean cut.

“Okay, chair over here, this way, Mr. Parker, and you can hold your son.”

The baby is still crying, shrill, and it’s weird that such an objectively terrible sound can, in this moment, cause no reaction in him but pure euphoria.

Parker nestles against Peter’s chest, his legs froggied under his body, like he’s not ready to stop being in the fetal position yet. Peter puts a hand onto his tiny back and starts scent marking him, and Parker’s little cries soften and stop.

Peter’s lips part in a soundless _wow._ Parker is so _small._ He’s technically not preterm, they told him that earlier, but good God. Peter feels like the baby would fit in one hand. In fact with his wrist against the baby’s bare bottom, his fingertips are brushing the back of his little head.

Speaking of which. Oh my God. It turns out that “soft as a baby’s bottom” was actually based on truth, because Parker’s skin is like rose petals. And the texture of the light fuzz on his scalp! Oh wow! And he’s so _warm_ and he has his own little baby smell, Peter can smell it under his scent mark and it’s _amazing._ It makes him want to scent mark Parker even more, because that baby smell is just too good. People have to know this baby is _claimed._

Peter hasn’t gotten very many moments of pure, unadulterated joy in his adult life. He’ll never forget this one.

Once they get Miles stitched up, a nurse shows Peter how to support Parker’s head while transferring the newborn to Miles’s chest.

“He’s amazing, Miles,” Peter says, suddenly feeling guilty for hogging what felt like the first ten hours of their son’s life while totally ignoring the person who’d just given birth to him. “Thank you so much. He’s perfect. You’re both perfect.”

*

When they get home from the hospital a few days later, once he’s got Miles settled in on their bed with Parker and a tray table with drinks and snacks, Peter goes rummaging in a box he hasn’t opened or even thought about in years.

It feels strange to be handling his camera and lenses again, but he’s never had a subject he wanted to photograph more. He takes pictures of Parker awake, asleep, feeding, crying, getting his first bath, wearing the official Spider-Man footie pajama with matching hat set, and lots and lots of pictures of Parker and Miles snuggling up together.

Miles takes lots of pictures on his phone too, of course. He gets a picture of Parker and Peter both asleep on the bed together, face down, bum up in the air, and makes it his lockscreen picture.

When Parker is a week old, Peter gets prints made of about twenty of them, hanging a dozen all over the apartment, and giving the rest in a folder to Miles, who wants to mail them to his parents in the other universe.

Miles dials the gadget and steps through the portal, and then it’s Peter alone with Parker for the first time.

They’d picked a time when Parker was asleep in his bassinet. Peter sits cross-legged on the bed looking at his son. The little aqua pacifier in his mouth twitches a little before sliding out, leaving a little string of drool. Parker’s mouth wibbles and his brows squinch up as he blindly turns his head seeking the nipple again, and Peter quickly puts the pacifier back in. Parker settles.

First solo parenting test: passed! Peter feels inordinately proud.

When Miles comes back, Parker’s still asleep, which is good because Miles is a mess. He tells Peter about seeing a missing kid poster about himself in the other dimension.

Peter lays down with Miles and scents him and pretty soon Peter has both of his beloved ones asleep, one on either side of him.

It’s not fair, it’s not right. Miles’s parents did nothing wrong, Peter did everything wrong, but where is Miles now? In Peter’s bed, and his parents don’t even know where he is, how he’s being treated, if he’s even alive from moment to moment.

Miles should leave him. He should take Parker and go back to his own dimension, with the people who deserve him, with the people who treat Miles right. Now that Miles has given birth successfully, the major danger to his health has passed, and he doesn’t need Peter’s scent anymore. Peter should tell him to go.

Peter’s not going to tell him to go.

Peter pulls Miles a little closer, breathes in his scent, and hopes fervently that the multiverse keeps allowing him to get away with being a horrible man.


	5. how do you do it? make me feel like I do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: babies being babies ie puking and needing their clothes/diaper changed.
> 
> Boy I hope you're here for the guilty devotion because if you haven't figured it out by now, that is the core purpose of this fic.

“That was funnier than I thought it would be,” Miles says after their guest leaves. He’s changing Parker’s diaper on the floor, and Peter steps on the pedal of the diaper bin so that Miles can toss the old one in. “Yes! Three points.”

Peter takes his foot off the pedal. “What’s funny about it?”

“Well, first of all, his ‘little baby welcoming gift’ being the use of a whole freaking _island_ for a month. What’s a big gift to him, then?”

“Probably if he gave us the island to keep.”

“And then even funnier was how Mr. Stark kept saying _kid,_ but he meant _you,”_ says Miles, grinning. “It really threw me the first time. I was like, is he talking to me? And then _you_ answered. So that was wild. Did he know you when you were little?”

“Not little. I was about your age when he met me as Spider-Man, a little older as Peter Parker. He’s about twenty years older than me and we met when I was about your age, so I guess he just never dropped the habit.”

Miles fastens the new diaper, snaps the onesie closed, and puts Parker’s pants back on, then picks the baby up. Before Miles even gets Parker a foot off the ground, the baby releases a off-white mouthful of spit-up onto himself. Miles sighs and lowers the baby back onto the changing mat and reopens the wipe container. “Could you grab me a clean shirt please?”

As Peter goes to fetch clean clothes for the pup, he thinks about the similarities and differences between Tony’s relationship with him, and his with Miles. The age gap was about the same, wasn’t it? It really is wild, like Miles said.

Tony was an uncle figure at a time when he desperately needed one, and he’d been a young man for whom an uncle figure was even more meaningful than a father figure. At that time—strange to think of it now—he’d been the annoying, mouthy teen of the hero landscape in New York, acting like he didn’t need anybody’s advice or help.

He has a kneejerk revulsion to the idea of him and Tony ever having made their relationship sexual, and at first it’s just fresh ammunition to fire at himself. God knows Tony was no angel, especially when it came to fucking anything that would hold still long enough, but even he had kept boundaries with Peter. Peter must really be depraved, fucked in the head...

“Can I get that shirt sometime this year?” Miles calls, and Peter snaps out of his reverie over Parker’s dresser and grabs a shirt at random.

“You get lost or something?” Miles says as Peter comes up with the shirt.

Peter doesn’t say anything, merely methodically works the neck opening over Parker’s outsized head. Miles helps poke Parker’s skinny arms into the sleeves.

“Does he have kids? I didn’t want to ask, in case it was touchy, but he seemed pretty confident with Parker.”

“Yeah, he and Pepper have a daughter,” Peter says. Right, Tony was always telling him to just relax and not worry so much when Peter was agonizing about having kids with MJ.

 _“Of course you’re not ready, kid, nobody’s ready. It'd be one thing if I thought you really_ didn't _want kids, then I'd support you, but it's not that and I think you know it._ _Jesus, back in the day I was always telling you to wrap it up and that kids were a buzzkill, but that was mostly ‘cause you’re an alpha and I figured otherwise you’d have a baseball team by twenty-five.”_

_“Stereotypical, Tony.”_

Tony often brought up Peter’s alpha dynamic... Tony was a beta and Peter figured out pretty early that there was some long-standing... thing, there, with Tony. Probably connected to Tony’s other father issues. The alpha father disappointed in his beta heir was another stereotype.

Omegas going into heat and alphas overcome by their instincts was another stereotype. Maybe stereotypes had a little more applicability in his life than he was comfortable with.

“What do you think, Parks?” Miles settles on the couch with Parker belly-down on a receiving blanket on his chest. “Should we just let Daddy brood? You and me can hang out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter admits, making to sit on the other end of the couch.

Miles lifts his feet so Peter can set down and then settles them in Peter’s lap. “You know, we got an established precedent about foot rubs in this family.”

“I give ‘em and you get ‘em?”

“Yep.” Miles meets Peter’s eyes. “Something you wanna talk about?”

“G-word,” Peter says. “It’ll pass.”

“There’s always free-range, organic, all natural baby therapy,” Miles offers. “Skin to skin time? How about it?”

Peter grunts, but then he lets go of Miles’s foot and pulls his shirt off, and Miles undresses Parker down to his diaper and brings him over to nestle against Peter’s chest.

“You like that, huh? You love Daddy’s smell, doncha Parks. Don’t blame you. He smells sooooo good.” Miles is pressing against Peter’s side, putting his face to his throat, breathing against it.

It’s fucking idyllic, is what it is.

But the weird thing is, even the guilt, as strong as it is, can’t seem to win out anymore against the love he feels for Miles and Parker, the happiness he feels being with them and seeing them happy. He’s ruined so much, he can’t ruin this for them.

“Parker’s the one who smells good,” Peter says, smiling, “which is pretty crazy when you think about how much time he spends covering himself with vomit and feces.”

“Ewwwwwww,” laughs Miles.

*

 **Noir:** ATTENTION PETER B PARKER STOP HOW THINGS YOUR UNIVERSE QUERY NAZI MENACE CONTINUES DESPITE PUNCHES STOP HOPE NO NAZIS YOUR UNIVERSE

 **Peter:** Hi Peter. You know, there’s no need to use all caps or conserve your words on this gadget, it’s not a telegram... I mean, you can still write that way if you’re used to it, I guess. Things here are actually pretty good. Minimal Nazis, though I hate to admit we still have a few of the scum.

 **Noir:** RECOMMEND LEFT HOOK KIDNEY PUNCH NAZIS STOP DIFFICULT ADMIT BUT MET REAL DOLLFACE NAMED MARY JANE STOP EXPECT TROUBLE BUT STILL GOING DIZZY

Oh boy. Peter hopes that Noir isn’t about to ask him for love advice, especially if it’s about wooing his universe’s Mary Jane.

It seems like he should come clean about Miles, since Noir knows him too. Noir will probably be absolutely horrified at Peter’s actions, but at least that means Peter won’t have to give advice.

 **Peter:** I know you know I was trying to reconcile with my MJ, but it didn’t work out. I’m actually with Miles now. Miles Morales, from Earth-1610. There was an incident with his first heat. To make a long story short, he gave birth to my son on April 19.

 **Noir:** CHEERS ON MANACLES STOP HUMDINGER KID LUCKY BREAK TYING HIM FIRST HEAT

Peter has to read it several times to understand that Noir is... whole-heartedly congratulating him. Although he seems to have misunderstood and thought that Peter pair-bonded with Miles...

 **Peter:** Well, we’re together but we’re not bonded. Don’t get me wrong I’m taking responsibility for the pup no matter what, and I’ll be with him as long as he wants, but he’s so young... he may change his mind later.

 **Noir:** STRANGE UNIVERSE STOP OMEGA NEEDS GOOD ALPHA PAIR STOP OMEGA HERO TIMES THOUSAND STOP THINK ABOUT IT

Peter is about to roll his eyes reading the old-fashioned belief that “an omega needs a good alpha in a bonded pair” but the following phrase, asserting tersely that “for an omega who’s a hero, that’s true times a thousand” actually gives him pause.

It’s true that even now being an unbonded omega is a liability in combat. There’s a reason why Miles’s spidersuit had maximum strength scent filtering even before he presented, just on the chance that he might present as an omega unexpectedly. All an alpha villain has to do with an unbonded omega is give a command. Now alpha commands aren’t perfect mind control—they’d be even more deadly if they were. The further the command is from what the omega would willingly do, the easier it is for the omega to fight the compulsion off. But it still has to be _fought off._ Even when Miles had that jellyfish pollen in him, Peter still remembered seeing Miles struggle against Peter’s commands briefly.

Being distracted by commands at critical moments in a fight isn’t just a theoretical danger, either. Peter has used commands to distract omega villains himself, although he never felt good doing it and only did it when he couldn’t think of another option; Eddie Brock once told him straight out that alpha commands were one of the things that made him go craziest with hate, and Peter couldn’t fault that.

A bonded omega, on the other hand, could completely ignore all alpha commands except for their own alpha. But. _Those_ commands would be nearly impossible to shrug off, even to the point of obeying orders to do things the omega would _never_ willingly do, without hesitation.

Miles being in danger from alpha villains because he can’t ignore their commands is a serious problem. But the idea of _Peter_ having life-or-death power over Miles is horrifying in its own way. He didn’t want to think he would ever exploit such a power... but he also still found it hard to believe that he behaved like he did during Miles’s heat. Could he really be trusted like that?

Not to mention that when a bonded omega loses their alpha, they have to go through a long, painful period of physical withdrawl from their mate’s scent marking, an ordeal that can last years, that sometimes even kills omegas—not directly, but by making other health conditions worse. Peter is forty, _twenty-three years_ older than Miles. Peter had been worried about leaving MJ a widow when he was in his twenties—and considering what happened to the 1610-him, he was right to worry.

Peter’s already seen Miles with his lips tinged blue from his body’s unfulfilled need for Peter’s scent. How can he possibly consider making that a certainty again?

It’s a lot to think about, and it’s not something he wants to discuss with Noir. He decides to give Noir some half-truths to settle the issue and move on.

 **Peter:** Our universe has medications and scent blocking technology to help omegas live more comfortably. But I appreciate your point. Now that I think about it, in 1934 or whatever it is, omegas in your universe have no suppressants or anything... I guess it’s actually pretty progressive that you still think Miles can be a hero.

 **Noir:** SOME HUMANS INNATELY LESSER IS NAZI TALK STOP ANYONE CAN BE HERO STOP PUP NAME QUERY

Peter smiles.

 **Peter:** Parker Morales. No middle name. Sometimes we call him Parks.

 **Noir:** ACES TELL HIM LOVE FROM UNCLE NOIR STOP WILL PUNCH NEXT NAZI FOR PARKER

 **Peter:** That’s genuinely the best baby gift we’ve gotten. Thank you.

*

Peter accepts an offer in the mid six figures to shoot an ad for a car company. It features him in the spider suit driving an SUV while saying crappy, humourless lines that someone else wrote for him like “they’re gaining on us” and “phew, that was close” before revealing that he’s just attempting to get to be first in line at a drive-thru coffee place. Pan to a car seat in the back, and then Peter lifting his mask to drink the coffee. “When my kid doesn’t sleep, my Honda Hero saves the day.”

It’s terrible but it’s also a downpayment and then some even on a detached home in Forest Hills, which is definitely no longer the middle-class lifestyle it was when Uncle Ben bought the house Peter grew up in. The house they buy is a pretty new build, no front yard, high fences in the back. It has three stories and the master bedroom has a whirlpool tub, which is the height of luxury as far as Peter is concerned.

And they set it up to have the headache parts of packing, moving, and unpacking done by professionals while they’re up in New Hampshire on Tony’s little private island in Lake Winnipesaukee.

It’s surreal, living like this. There had been plenty of times when he and MJ were rich on paper, but they had always lived that very minimalistic city life, spending money only to fly MJ out to auditions in California or wherever. Then investing his money had seemed like a reasonable, concrete thing that he could do to demonstrate to MJ that he was making moves to get to them to a stable financial base to raise a family. He still brooded over how every investment was a progressively bigger disaster that he never saw coming. Especially TGI Spidey’s. How could it go so wrong? People loved the cereal...

A pair of spandex gloves cover Peter’s eyes. “Guess who,” says an overly deep faked voice.

Peter laughs. “You know, that’s a question with even less possible answers than when we’re in Brooklyn, puppy.”

The hands let him go, and Peter turns around. Miles is hanging upside down from the tree that Peter was standing under, wearing the black suit with the spray painted logo again.

“Gotta admit this feels great,” Miles says. “Parker still asleep? I found a path you can go from island to island for a crazy long time. There’s this one thwip-thwip that’s a liiiitle dicey, but I made it.”

“Yeah, he’s still asleep.”

“You wanna have a swing around then? I can stay here.”

“Nah.” Peter looks out at the water and islands and the distant main shore, then looks back to Miles. “It’s pretty, but I’d rather spend time with you.”

“Oh!” says Miles, the eyes on his mask going real wide.

_Cute._

“Um... hey, maybe this is weird to ask, but... could we do... you know... the spidey-kiss thing?” Miles sways a little in the air and adds anxiously, “I understand if it’d be too weird.”

 _Because of MJ_ is unspoken but they both understand it.

“It might be weird to be the one on the ground,” Peter says, to acknowledge it but also bypass it. “I can’t pass up an opportunity to kiss you, though.”

“Wait—in this universe, you were the one in the air?”

“Uh... yeah?” Peter blinks. “Why... how would MJ be hanging in the air when I’m on the ground?”

“She was hanging from a ladder, in the comics in my universe at least.”

“A ladder...” Peter shakes his head. “Your universe really is the weird limp fry of the multiverse.”

Miles starts to say something but cuts it off immediately as Peter steps forward and reaches up to tug down on Miles’s mask, pulling the whole thing down, so that Miles’s beautiful mouth is revealed and the eyes of the mask are far enough up that Miles is effectively blindfolded.

Peter puts a hand on either side of Miles’s face, dragging it out, letting Miles anticipate the kiss without knowing exactly when it will happen.

He leans in. The suit and mask block Miles’s scent, an important safety feature, but with his throat exposed now and Peter up so close he can smell the omega sweetness of him. Instead of starting with a lip kiss, Peter goes up on his toes to press a bite that doesn’t break the skin to the side of Miles’s neck instead.

“Ah,” Miles cries out, surprised, and opens his mouth again, maybe to say something, but Peter covers it with his own, lets Miles suck on his tongue instead.

When Peter finally steps back, he admires the erotic art he’s created of Miles’s lips, all marked-up and sucking in air.

“Peter,” the lips gasp out, “Peter, take me inside, please.”

Miles could fix his mask back down or take it off, of course, he could go wherever he wants on his own power... but he’s asking to be babied, and Peter wants nothing more than to baby him.

“Of course, puppy,” he says, taking him in a bridal carry, leaving the mask in its semi-blindfold position as he carries him into the vacation house.

They have to be quiet, with Parker sleeping in the bedroom. Miles drools around his own fist as Peter fucks him over the table, Miles naked except for the blindfold-mask, Peter fully dressed except for pulling his cock out of his jeans.

There’s no quieting the slap of skin against skin, the creak of the table legs protesting against the force of Peter’s thrusts, the wet noise of Miles’s hole swallowing his cock, or Peter’s harsh breaths.

Knotting, to their mutual regret, is not possible, so Peter makes the best of it and fulfils another fantasy, pulling out to let his cum mark up Miles’s back and ass.

“Gorgeous,” he whispers as Miles stays bent over and panting, Peter’s cum glistening in cloudy lines, clear slick drying on the inside of his thighs. “So, so beautiful.”

*

They step out of the portal and Miles checks over Parker, who’s strapped to his front in a carrier. Not there’s any reason to think that travelling across dimensions wouldn’t be safe for the baby, especially after what Strange said about Parker being native to both dimensions, but the parental instinct to doublecheck is strong.

Parental instinct is what Peter’s about to have to confront.

A gust of wind knocks some golden leaves loose from a tree and blows the ones already on the sidewalk around as they walk. Miles nudges shoulders with him. "My dad is not gonna kill you, Peter.”

Peter has his hands in the pockets of his best suit. He’d picked what to wear based on what he’d wear if he was on trial. No, not on trial. Sentencing. “I’m not worried he’s gonna kill me. I’m worried I’m gonna look at him and wish I was dead.”

“Well if looking at him makes you feel like that, then just look at Parker and you’ll remember you’re happy to be alive.”

Peter half-smiles at his son, who is awake and looking around curiously, adorable as usual with a little knit bobble hat. “I know, I know. One afternoon sweating bullets is nothing compared to what your parents—”

“No g-word!”

Peter shakes his head. “Today is gonna be all g-word. You might as well call it Griday.”

Peter has had to deal with some mild judgment before now—Fury’s cold warning, a few dirty looks from strangers when they were on dates, Tony laughing at him over the phone— _”You robbed the cradle to fill a cradle, huh kid?”_

But that was all people who didn’t know the full story, who thought Miles was or at least might have been legal. Miles’s dad will be the first who truly _knows_ that Peter’s a rapist, and his _own son_ is his victim.

It’s basically going to be a few hours of the punishment he’s always deserved, and then he’ll go back to having the happy life he doesn’t. How can he complain about it?

When Miles’s mother lets them in, and the afternoon continues on, Peter thinks that Miles’s father probably thinks Peter’s strictly submissive and silent behaviour is an attempt to gain his approval, but it isn’t. It’s simply the only possible way that Peter can behave, here in the apartment where he snuck in the window and fucked Miles the third time.

It’s still an ordeal to his instincts, especially when Mr. Davis scented Parker without asking permission, right in his face. It’s a denial of Peter’s position as Parker’s father; in the old days, a challenge to take his pack away from him.

But Peter keeps himself still, even as his instincts howl further at Miles’s distress and anger.

 _I’m more than my instincts. He’s scenting my son without asking? Parker’s his grandchild, it’s expected for him to scent mark Parker, asking is just a formality. Whereas I invaded his home and_ _stole his son—Miles’s innocence, his future, his entire life. The difference in level of insult isn’t even close._

At the end of the visit, when Peter seizes a technicality to speak to Miles’s father, he doesn’t expect forgiveness and he doesn’t receive it.

“Taking responsibility would have been turning yourself in to the police,” Mr. Davis says. The other alpha’s scent is harsh and rankles at the back of Peter’s throat.

When they get back to Peter’s dimension, Miles disappears upstairs to put the pup down for a nap.

Should he have turned himself in to the police? Leaving aside the question of the police in _what_ dimension... it _is_ what he should have done. The right choice, rather than the easy one.

He’s supposed to be a hero. Kids dress up as him.

The couch dips a little. “Um, thanks for coming with me.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“I thought it went ok. I mean first time is always the worst. Maybe he’ll mellow out about it someday.” Miles’s voice is tentative, appeasing. “You don’t have to go back, if you don’t want.”

Peter looks up at that. “It shouldn’t be about what _I_ want. What do _you_ want?”

Miles’s eyes... oh, they have to be that big in order to hold that much love, probably. “I don’t think I can get everything I want. Nobody can, right? But when you let me be with you... then I got what I want the most. Really.”

Peter can’t look at Miles’s eyes for longer than a few seconds without smiling, even in a circumstance like this. “I believe you.”

“C’mere.”

Miles pulls him into a closed mouth kiss, holds him close, parts his lips with his tongue and steals the breath and objections and everything out of him, everything except Peter’s love for Miles. Slowly, with deliberation, Miles pulls on Peter’s head to lead his lips onto Miles’s mating gland.

It smells so good, it smells like it’s worth giving up anything and everything to obtain. “You know what you’re doing to me.”

“I’m ready for it when you are.”

Peter can never say no to Miles. Miles isn’t even in heat right now, biting the gland wouldn’t create a mark, yet Peter’s lips part anyway and he mouths at it, plays at pressing his teeth into it. Miles’s body goes relaxed and loose in Peter’s embrace.

Jesus. Peter’s not worthy of being trusted with this, no way. Even so, it takes every bit of self-restraint he has to come up with even a way to ask Miles to wait.

“This time next year. If you still want it this time next year, I’ll mark you.”

Miles sighs, and Peter prays to whatever entity will listen that Miles doesn’t push him on this “next year” thing. His self-control gets a reprieve, because Miles simply says, “I love you, Peter.”

“Love you too, puppy.”


	6. to save you from your old ways

At Thanksgiving they go back to Earth-1610, but not to see Miles’s parents this time.

They stand at the doorstep of a house in the other Forest Hills, Miles holding Parker, Peter gripping a tub of orange chrysanthemums, his camera bag at his hip. _His_ Aunt May always said living flowers were a better gift than cut ones, so...

The door opens, and the inside smells like turkey and pumpkin pie. The television in the front room is playing the parade. “Peter, Miles, it’s so good to see you, come in.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Aunt May,” Peter says, offering the flowers as they step in, but Aunt May has her eyes on what Miles is holding.

“And a special hello to you, young man,” Aunt May says, while Parker regards her warily. “It’s so nice to meet you, Parker. Now I have some toys for you over here, if you’d like to take a look at them.”

Peter just keeps standing awkwardly by the door, looking around, while Miles gets Parker out of his winter coat.

The room itself looks very similar to how it did before they nearly knocked the house down brawling with Kingpin’s goons. Everything’s been replaced, but the taste of the person doing the replacements was the same, so it’s still all gentle florals and twee ceramics behind glass doors. A photograph of an unsettlingly blond version of Uncle Ben still has pride of place next to the stairs, and there are pictures of the blond Peter everywhere too. Some of the photographs are off in other ways—blond Peter played football instead of basketball, which must have been _really_ funny to watch before the spider bite, when he was a nerdy weakling. At least nobody tackled in basketball.

There’s a picture of Parker hanging up, which throws him for a moment, until he realizes that by itself, there’s nothing incriminating about it. It’s just a black and white picture of a sleeping newborn baby’s face; it’s only because he took the picture that he immediately zeroed in on it.

Parker can sit up unassisted now, and Miles sets him up on the blanket that Aunt May has set up on the floor where the coffee table used to be. There’s a nubby silicone ball, some board books _(B_ _aby’s First Thanksgiving_ says the one on the top of the stack), a cloth baby doll, and one of those wooden cube activity centres. Aunt May offers Parker the doll while Miles stands back up to take off his own coat.

Parker accepts the doll, regards its face intently, then opens his mouth and begins nomming on the doll’s forehead.

“Beautiful flowers, Peter, thank you.” Aunt May comes back to take them from him. “Are they from this dimension?”

“Uh, yeah.” He unzips his coat and hangs it on the hook next to Miles’s.

“I know the perfect place for it upstairs, but it’s a bit of a reach for me,” she says. “Be a dear and come help me, Peter?”

Peter isn’t fooled. He hangs his head as he follows Aunt May up the stairs.

Aunt May scruffs him the moment the door is closed behind them upstairs and Peter lets out a whine at a pitch he hasn’t released in _years_ as he drops to his knees.

“Well I’m glad at least your body knows who’s pack alpha around here,” Aunt May says. “Now I _know_ the other me did not raise you to take advantage of a first heat, Peter.”

Oh God. It’s not _his_ Aunt May— _it’s not—_ but the smell is the same, and the voice, and it doesn’t matter because if his Aunt May _was_ alive she’d be just this disappointed in him—

There’s a sigh, and then the hand on the back of his neck is turning gentle and gathering his crying face against her chest, scent marking him. “I suppose I should have let you explain first. I just get so dang mad, Peter, you know me—or you know the _other_ me, I guess.”

He can’t help a watery chuckle at that. He did know her—he does.

“It just about gave me a heart attack when I saw that poor boy’s face on the news, missing and _pregnant._ And his poor parents, they had no idea. I still love you, but you’re not off the hook,” she says sternly. “Explain.”

So Peter does, as awkward as it is to explain to this alternate dimension version of the woman who raised him. At least Aunt May has always been difficult to shock and willing to ignore popular opinion—had to be, as an alpha woman who had a beta man as the love of her life. As soon as he mentions the narco-medusa, Aunt May clicks her tongue.

 _“Those_ things. I helped clean my Peter off the first time he tangled with one, before we knew what it was about. Then I went on a date with Liv—didn’t know she was Doc Ock then,” she adds, probably anticipating Peter’s disgust at the idea of his aunt romantically involved with the supervillain. “It was quite an evening. If it got on both of you when Miles was in heat—”

“It doesn’t excuse that I went back to his dimension the next day. To his room in his parent’s apartment,” Peter says, glad he’s looking at Aunt May’s floral blouse instead of her eyes. “And the rest of it... I... I really did something terrible this time, Aunt May.”

There’s a long silence, and then Aunt May says, “I wonder if it went down the same way, in your universe. When you told me about what led up to Ben’s death.”

Peter’s almost glad he’s already crying as she strokes his hair.

“You—my Peter, that is—you had your stuff packed...”

“I was sure you were going to kick me out,” Peter chokes out.

“And I said we’re family, and that’s more than any mistake can change, no matter what.”

Peter makes a muffled noise in his aunt’s cardigan.

“It’s more than a little thing like you being the Peter from another universe can change, either,” she says, still soothing his hair. “You’re still _Peter,_ and I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too Aunt May.”

“So now that we’ve got _that_ cleared up, tell me the rest of it.”

Peter explains the fallout with his universe’s MJ, Miles’s attempts to struggle through his pregnancy alone, and Peter’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to support him without crossing the romantic/sexual boundary again, until Peter finally gave up on even trying.

“I love him. I’m sure my love is bad for him, but I just keep... when he’s with me I can never stop myself, but I can never figure out how to push him away without him getting hurt worse. I know it’s pathetic, but I just _can’t_ say no to him, ever. I keep waiting for him to figure out that I took advantage of him... he asked me to mark him, and the best I could manage was to ask him to wait a year. And my life... everything in my life is so _great_ right now, and every way that I’ve changed, I’ve done because of him. I feel like a vampire, like I sucked my happiness out of him. He saved me but it cost him his entire dimension.”

Aunt May sighs. “He’s eighteen now, isn’t he?”

“Yes. _Just_ eighteen. Two months ago,” Peter says numbly.

“It’s like I always told you, you can only go on from where you are.”

“My Aunt May worded it slightly differently, but I remember it.”

“You did make some bad choices. But you don’t have those choices to make over again, they’re done. You have new choices. And what I would say to you about these new choices is... keep your promises.”

*

Peter uses the bathroom and washes his face before he comes back downstairs.

“I was just telling Miles that Parker should call me Aunt May too,” Aunt May’s voice calls from the kitchen when Peter stands in the doorway between the front room and the dining room. An oven door opens and closes. “I know I’m _great,_ there’s no need to dwell on it.”

 _You okay?_ Miles mouths at him when Peter glances towards the front room, and Peter nods with a genuine smile and calls towards the kitchen, “You need help with anything?”

“I’ve been doing Thanksgivings for decades, you just sit down and watch the parade with Parker.”

Parker is indeed staring entranced at the television’s depiction of a gigantic Snoopy balloon slowly making its way down 6th Avenue. He’s still got the doll in his mouth—one of the feet this time.

“Unless you’re one of those parents that doesn’t allow TV,” Aunt May adds. “Miles didn’t say anything, but maybe he was trying to be polite. You can turn it off if you don’t want it on.”

“It’s fine with me,” says Miles, sitting on the plastic-wrapped couch with a glass of eggnog and a tray on his lap with cheese and crackers. “You should get some eggnog, Peter.”

So Peter gets some eggnog, because he does do cheat days, and watches the parade, and then they all sit down at a table set with roast turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and pumpkin pie. They bow their heads and clasp their hands while Aunt May thanks God “in His mystery” for continuously bringing good things out of bad.

Parker is still new to solid food and it’s his first time having mashed potatoes. He goes _nuts_ for them, both as food and as face mask, and Peter gets some great pictures. Aunt May tells funny stories about her trials and tribulations in online dating, Miles talks about the research he’s been doing into various colleges, and Peter recounts the time he was chasing a minor villain who could produce sticky goo and got stuck to the top of his own Spider-Man float and rode it all the way to Herald Square before he was spotted by a television camera.

Peter’s not sure about God, mysterious or otherwise, but he feels thankful anyway.

After dinner, Parker lets Aunt May hold him and even falls asleep in her arms while Miles is looking through photo albums of the blond Peter, Peter mentioning stuff that is the same as his memories while asking Aunt May about the stuff that’s different.

In addition to his preference for playing football (badly) and rooting for the Jets and Islanders rather than playing basketball (badly) and rooting for the Nets and Mets, blond Peter was apparently even more academic than Peter B. While Peter B went to work for the _Bugle_ after getting a bachelors in physics, the year blond Peter died he was getting ready to defend his doctoral thesis in chemical engineering.

“My Peter never really found an artistic outlet,” Aunt May says thoughtfully. “Photography... yes, I remember Peter mentioning that he wanted to take a photography elective but it didn’t work with his schedule. He took a metal shop class instead.”

_Wonder if that’s how he managed to make that crazy lair of his._

“Um, Aunt May,” Miles says, a little shy about using the name still instead of Ms. Parker, “I just wanted to make sure you know, Parker isn’t just named after my Peter. He’s named for your Peter too.”

“That’s very kind of you.” She looks down at Parker with a sad smile.

“Would you... Aunt May, would you like to scent Parker?” Peter asks.

“I’d be honoured.”

*

“Joy to the world I keep saving, maybe I could get paid, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm ehhhh, da da da da da dayyyy, and literally I don’t get paid, uh hmm hmm uh hmm hmm get paid, the stuff to make web fluid is _not free,_ okay?”

Peter snickers while Miles half-sings his own... special lyrics to the instrumental “Joy to the World” playing on the stereo while they trim the tree. Peter also hung lights on the front of the house during the day—a trivial task with spider powers.

The omega was apologetic when he asked mid-December if they could have a tree and the other secular traditions of Christmas for Parker, saying that he knew it was kind of last minute, but Peter was quick to inform him that he’d go along with whatever.

They’re not getting many “silent nights” these days. Parker, after giving them false hope through November of sometimes sleeping through the night or only waking once, has been waking twice or more a night and playing Napfighter II every day.

Miles looks tired but determined to get the tree done in one go, even though there’s still a week until Christmas. The Christmas lights are already plugged in and lit, casting a gentle multicoloured glow against his face as he clings casually to the wall to hang ornaments at the top of the back. “The tree smells really good,” Miles comments, “I’m glad we got a real one. Toss me the star?”

Peter throws it to him, and Miles crawls up onto the ceiling to affix the star to the top of the tree, then crawls across the ceiling to drop himself down next to the light switch.

Miles flicks off the lights, and they enjoy the quiet glow of the Christmas tree in silence for a moment.

“I kind of wish Parker was awake to see it,” says Peter, and then the baby monitor warbles with an ambiguous baby noise that might just be a loud sigh or could be the start of a crying jag.

“You jinx it, you get it back to sleep,” Miles jokingly warns Peter as they both stare at the monitor, but the machine settles back into white noise.

“Phew,” says Peter, and glances at the clock. “You wanna get ready for bed?”

“It’s not that late yet. Could we just sit on the couch and enjoy it for a bit?”

“Sure.”

The stereo is still playing instrumentals of Christmas music. Peter rests the side of his face against Miles’s hair and drapes his arm across his shoulder.

“It was kind of a hard day,” Miles says, surprising Peter. “I know I kinda bullied you into doing all that Christmas decorating today. I just wanted my mind off things.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were upset,” says Peter, irritated with himself for not realizing it was more than tiredness. “The decorating was fine. I enjoyed it too.”

“You know how I was saying before that I should get Parker registered in the other universe and just generally deal with the legal stuff over there. Well, I did the last of it today. Got Parker’s birth certificate and social security card... oh, right, I should give them to you to put in the fire safe.”

“Oh...” Peter knew Miles went out with Parker that morning while Peter was doing the outside lights, but he’d assumed it was for the usual weekly playgroup, not extradimensional travel.

“I dunno. I don’t really wanna talk about it exactly... I mean, they approved it and stuff, so Parker has identity papers if he ever wants to go to that dimension, and they've officially closed my missing person’s case, but... I dunno. I had the documents mailed to my parents’ place and my dad was there, sleeping, ‘cause he’d had a night shift the night before. He wasn’t mad or anything... he was... really glad to see us...” Miles stays silent for a bit, looking at the tree. “It was hard.”

“I didn’t smell him...?”

Miles sighs. “When he asked if he could scent mark Parker, I got irritated and I said, ‘Oh, when it’s just me, you remember to ask?’ I wish I didn’t. He just looked sad, he didn’t say nothing. I tried to tell him he could do it after, but then he just said it was fine. It was dumb. It’s not like I get to see him that much...”

“You can go there anytime you want,” Peter says, and then forces himself to add, “you can even live there, if you want.”

Miles instantly gives him a glare. “I _don’t_ want. You stop that.”

“Well it’s important to me that you remember it’s an option.”

Miles lets out an irritated breath. “I know it’s an option! You think I wanna go back to being without you?”

Peter stares, and Miles’s glare softens.

“Don’t you know how good it is, being with you?” he says, turning himself on the couch to more face Peter. “This other stuff with my family, and all that—it sucks, it really sucks, yeah. I wish it was different. But not being with you... I tried it, man, _sucks_ doesn’t describe it.”

Peter laughs despite himself, but says, “If you’re talking about when you were pregnant, that was just physical dependence on my scent. It’d be different now.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Miles says, stubborn and confident. “My heart’s dependent on you now, okay. And don’t forget you said you’d mark me if I still wanted it next October. You promised. So quit it with telling me I can leave.”

“I didn’t forget,” Peter says, heart thumping at Miles’s words. He tries to fight it but his lips keep twitching up into a smile.

“What’s so funny?”

Peter lets the smile win. “‘My heart’s dependent on you.’ Cheesy puppy.”

Miles presses on Peter’s chest with his palms, raises up his chin loftily, as one with the moral high ground. “Romance isn’t cheesy.”

“No?” Peter leans in under the chin to kiss Miles’s neck.

That stops the words, for a while, at least until both of them have lost their pants and Miles is bouncing in Peter’s lap with his back to him, Peter pressing hot kisses against his neck.

“Peter, Peter, talk to me.”

“You like how I talk to you when I fuck you, puppy?”

“Yes! Yes, Peter, please!”

“So needy,” Peter growls, “just look at how desperate you are to ride my cock, you naughty thing. But you need me to talk to you too, huh? Is my cock fucking your little pussy good, baby? Is it rubbing you deep inside?”

“S-so good!”

“Miles,” Peter groans, “God, I love you Miles. Best little pussy... all for me... you get so wet for me, only me, right?”

Miles grabs Peter’s arm, hugs it to his chest. “Only you... it’s only ever gonna be you... ah!”

“Wanna give you my knot so bad, puppy. Wanna get you stuck on my cock, make you take it all. You want it?”

Miles comes instead of answering in words, and the extra stimulation takes Peter over the edge anyway, pulling Miles tight against him as his knot swells.

They both pant together for a minute in the afterglow, before Miles says sheepishly, “This position’s a little awkward, right?”

“Mm. You can fall asleep if you want.” Peter grabs at a throw blanket. “I’ll carry you upstairs when it goes down.”

“What if Parker wakes up,” Miles says, eyes already fluttering closed.

“You know his screams are better than a cold shower when it comes to making my knot go down,” Peter points out. “I’ll deal. You get some sleep if you can.”

Miles yawns something that might be _okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed the novelty Christmas music Sony put out for the film and improved/ruined it by skipping over a bunch of the words and getting others wrong in true Miles style.
> 
> If you've gotten nothing else from this fic, I hope I have broadened your mind to accept the wonder of alpha May Parker.


	7. don't worry, I'll catch you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about changing the name of the fic so if that changes, don't panic. (Don't ever worry.)

On Christmas, Peter is nervous but trying not to show it, sipping his coffee, while Miles opens his gifts: a drafting table and stool.

“I have the receipt, if it’s not what you want,” Peter says as Miles stares at it, not saying anything. “It’s just, uh, I’ve seen you all hunched over with your sketchbooks, and I know you’re flexible—heh—” He can’t help a brief amusement at his own unintentional innuendo. “—but, you know, you had one before, and we could fix up that room in the third floor, the one with the skylight, to be a studio...”

“It looks good,” Miles says, then smiles at Parker, who crawled over to investigate and is trying to get his dam to pick him up. Miles shifts from his knees to a cross-legged sit and pulls the pup into his lap, then looks over at Peter on the couch. “I was actually thinking... did you, like, figure it out, what I was thinking about doing?”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Well, I know you were kinda thinking I should, like maybe next fall, enroll in a college. Do the college thing, but... I was thinking about what I want to do with my life that fits with being a hero. Something that I enjoy, that is flexible, that won’t be too difficult to combine with something so unpredictable. I mean, high school wasn’t easy for that, and I can’t imagine that college is, not to mention most ‘normal’ jobs, but... maybe if I could do something with art, freelance, but... I’m not saying I don’t do anything to learn, because I know I could learn so much more, about art, and anatomy, and stuff.”

As he talks, Parker pushes at Miles’s shirt, and Miles absently lifts it to allow the pup to nurse.

“So... are you thinking about enrolling in art school?” Peter says, pushing away the distraction. Even though he’s seen Miles do this hundreds of times before—literally every day, since Parker was born-it still hits some instinctive button in Peter and makes him want to grin like an idiot. He’d been taken aback by how much he liked seeing Miles nurse; he had never really felt any particular way about seeing other people feed their babies, just like he had never felt any particular way about seeing other people pregnant. But when it was _Miles_ who was pregnant or nursing with _his_ pup, he just couldn’t help but feel deeply, deeply satisfied.

“Not enrolling,” Miles says, looking at the drafting table box again, unaware that Peter’s inner thoughts are drifting along such stereotypical knothead alpha lines. “More like taking a class at a time, not necessarily from a college, either. I mean, this is New York, the art scene is huge... although I’m kinda intimidated at the idea of trying to get ‘into the art scene’...” He smiles sheepishly. “I know for sure I want to take anatomy and life drawing, so maybe I’ll start there. Like, the more tools I give myself, the better, right? Hey, none of that. You play with my shirt if you wanna pinch something.”

This last is directed at Parker, who had a bad habit of more or less fidgeting with Miles’s skin while nursing, in a way that Miles found irritating at best.

Peter grabs one of Parker’s small toys and comes over to place it in the baby’s hand and keep it occupied.

“Thanks,” Miles says, giving Peter one of his adorable smiles.

“God, you’re cute,” Peter says without thinking.

“Geez,” Miles laughs, tilting his face up for a quick kiss, “did I do something?”

Peter kisses him. “You’re just always cute. Probably because I’m head over heels in love with you.”

*

It’s a pretty, unusually warm day in early April. It’s only the second time Miles has gone for a patrol in his new hero identity as Orbweaver. Peter took Parker to toddler gym hour at the rec centre and then came home for a snack and a nap. Peter’s trying out the clothesline in their backyard, hanging up blankets and sheets, when his spider sense goes off.

He leaps up to the second floor, Parker’s bedroom, forces open the window and darts inside just in time to catch the pup when he loses his balance at the top of his crib and topples off.

“Parker!” he says harshly. “What were you doing?!”

Parker screws up his face and _wails,_ and Peter instantly feels like an even worse father. Parker is a _baby,_ he doesn’t understand danger, it’s in his nature to try to explore his world, to learn to crawl and climb and walk.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Peter soothes, shifting the pup in his arms, sitting up on the floor and rubbing Parker’s back, scenting him. “It’s okay, you’re fine, Daddy caught you. Daddy’s not mad, I just got scared. But you’re okay. We’re okay.”

Parker keeps crying but more quietly, clutching onto Peter’s shirt with his chubby fists, getting drool and snot all over his shoulder.

Peter looks at the bars of the crib, the thing that’s supposed to keep his kid safe when he’s sleeping, with some chagrin.

When Parker started getting into making climbing attempts, they bolted all the furniture to the walls and tried to keep an extra close eye on him, but Peter hadn’t even considered that Parker would climb his crib. In hindsight, how stupid could he be?

Okay. Okay, time to calm down. Beating himself up about this is no help to anyone. He caught Parker. And even if he hadn’t, yeah Parker might have gotten a little hurt, but babies, and even more toddlers, take little falls every day, and most of them are fine, the human race wouldn’t be around if they weren’t fine. And Parker may even have a healing factor, he might be even more resilient than a typical pup.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Peter says aloud again, to himself as much as to Parker. “It’s gonna be okay.”

*

“Peter... Peter, wake up, please.”

The blanket lifts off of Peter as he opens his eyes and starts getting his bearings, blinking at Miles’s face illuminated only by the dim light of the moon through the window. “Miles? Wa’s wrong?”

“Need you.” Miles pulls away and turns his body, and two things jump to the front of Peter’s groggy mind: Miles is naked, and Miles is slick.

Peter breathes in sharply, instinctively checking for the scent of heat, but there isn’t any. So... Miles is just horny? Well, Peter’s never going to complain about being woken up for that. He sits up, rubbing his face a moment to encourage himself to wake up faster, and his eyes widen to see that Miles already took up the omegan lordosis position for being mounted: hips tilted up, knees open, spine curved, arms folded under himself, his chin resting on the mattress.

Peter’s half-awake mind swirls with memories of the first time—how his hands taught Miles’s ignorant, heat-crazed body this exact position, spreading his knees open, tilting his hips up, pushing his shoulders down, murmuring to him; how he worked Miles’s virgin asshole with his fingers, getting him loose and wet. How they wrestled and Peter repeatedly pinned and play-mounted him, how whenever Peter released the pin Miles would scratch, bite, and whine, trying to grab onto him, wordlessly and unconsciously asking for something he didn’t yet understand, until he finally started crying from frustration.

When that happened, Peter let go of Miles entirely, their only point of skin-to-skin contact the head of Peter’s cock against Miles’s hole, and the omega went absolutely still in this same, perfect lordosis posture. And Peter’s fevered brain thought: _He’s ready._

“Miles,” Peter says in the present moment, or intends to say, but it barely comes out at a whisper. His mind can’t remember he feels guilty about taking Miles in his first heat; it’s too busy wishing that Miles was in heat again. His mouth is watering and his gums feel weird, almost tingly.

Peter wants to _bite._

His hands fumble at the drawstring of his pants. “Just a moment, puppy, stay just like that for me.”

Miles whimpers, and Peter nearly rips his underwear getting it off his ankles. When he throws the clothing away it hits something in the room and knocks it over, but he’s already pressing his hips against Miles by then, rubbing on him, balanced on one hand while putting the fingers of the other inside Miles, rubbing his gland to encourage him to get even wetter.

“Peter, hurry,” moans Miles, turning his face to the side and trying to look up at him.

“Shhh, I’m here, I’m gonna give you what you need. Just relax, yeah? That’s it, get even wetter for me.”

Miles’s hole tries to hold onto his fingers with a wet squelch as Peter pulls them out and rubs the slick onto his cock.

“Ah,” pants Miles as Peter starts to press his dick inside him, inch by inch, “ah—ah—ah... haa... ah—”

“That’s it baby,” Peter groans. “Fuck, you’re incredible. Taking it so _tight_ every time, letting me fuck your little pussy open. This what you needed? My thick cock fucking you just right?”

The omega’s slick passage is hugging tight onto his cock. Every thrust of his hips pushes a breathy moan out of Miles, blending with the slap of Peter’s hips against his ass.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, mmmmmm...”

“Mmm, fuck yeah, puppy. I’ll give you my cock any time you need it. Fill this little pussy up, keep you satisfied. Make you come so hard.”

Peter lays his body down across Miles, indulging his instincts and biting down on a big pinch of skin and muscle where the neck meets the shoulder. It makes Miles’s knees give out and slide apart more. Peter’s weight presses Miles down into the mattress as he keeps fucking him, humping him, running his tongue on the flesh he’s gripping in his mouth and thinking _Mine. Mine. Mine._

“Hnnngh, Peter,” Miles chokes out when Peter finally lets go of the bite and swipes his tongue across the bruised flesh.

Peter snarls a little, frustrated. It’s not enough, he’s not _in_ Miles enough, he wants to bite, to mark, but he can’t. Miles is so good, so fucking good, _perfect..._ he keeps pushing his hips down against Miles over and over, moaning at the intensity of how good it feels to be inside his omega, thrusting as hard as he can as if he could somehow get even deeper.

He’s pushed over the edge when Miles whimpers “Coming... ah, alpha,” biting down again on Miles’s nape again, jamming his hips in as his dick pulses with his own orgasm and then his knot starts to bulge. Miles is all pliant and soft under him, just like he should be, because Miles is _his._

Peter breathes over Miles’s neck as his heartbeat gradually begins to slow down. Miles is breathing fast, his eyes closed, and the sheet beneath his face is wet, from tears or drool or some combination. Peter opens his jaw and sniffs, relieved not to smell any blood, at least.

“Baby,” Peter says softly, “you doing alright?” He presses a kiss against the base of Miles’s skull, breathing in the mix of Miles’s natural scent and the honey-almond creaminess of the product Miles uses on his hair. “Gimme a minute and I’ll turn us over.”

“It’s okay. I like... feeling you on top of me,” Miles says, his voice sounding a little embarrassed at saying the last bit.

Peter chuckles and licks behind Miles’s ear. “You won’t be happy in the morning if I sleep on you like this all night, puppy.”

“Won’t be happy in the morning anyway,” Miles mutters, then hurriedly, “Never mind.”

“So something _is_ wrong. Something happen on patrol?” Peter gives Miles a few moments to respond. “Baby, you know whatever it is, I bet I’ve been there too.”

“I messed up, okay? I’m... I don’t know.” Miles huffs a little and turns his face to the other side. “There was a fire in a mid rise and I didn’t... I really messed up. I thought I should start with the people at the top but...”

“Oh, Miles.” Peter rubs soothing circles on the back of Miles’s arms. “Fires are really unpredictable. Every person you _didn’t_ rescue would have been just as screwed if you hadn’t been there, you know that, right? And I’m guessing there were people you _did_ rescue, am I right?”

“Not enough.”

“Not enough...” Peter nuzzles Miles. “Oh, puppy, I know. It’s really hard, especially when you’re sure if you did something different you could have saved more.”

“I _could_ have. What if people could’ve gotten down themselves but they stayed by the window because they thought I was gonna save them? They were _there_ and then something just...” Miles sniffs. “I just... I got home and I was showering off the smoke and it just wouldn’t stop playing in my mind, man. And then I just suddenly wanted you so bad... Is that fucked up or what?”

“Jesus,” Peter snorts. “You’re gonna make me laugh.”

The corner of Miles’s mouth tweaks up a little. “It feels _really_ weird when you laugh when we’re tied.”

“I’ll bet.” Peter kisses Miles’s neck again. “It’s so hard when you can’t save somebody, I know. I bet it’s even harder for you than for me, because you’re a better person than I am.”

Miles blows a raspberry.

“Haven’t you made that sheet wet enough?” Peter mock-scolds.

“You made me get it wet lots of places.”

Peter can’t help laughing again, and he feels Miles twitch a little around his knot.

*

Peter glances at his ringing phone and double-takes.

**Call from: MJ**

“Okay, you keep working on that tower bud, Daddy’s gonna take this call,” Peter says, standing up.

Parker looks up curiously with a wooden block in each fist as his father hits the accept button.

“Hello?”

“Hi Peter. It was nice seeing you at the party, and meeting your partner.”

“Yeah... yeah, hey, congratulations, uh, again, on... on you and Flash... being a thing,” Peter says, anxious and already floundering. Even with how much he loves Miles, he never stopped loving MJ and wanting her to be happy.

“Well, that’s actually why I’m calling. Flash and I bonded, and we’re expecting a baby in March.”

Relief floods Peter. The fear that MJ had wasted too much time on him and now wouldn’t be able to have kids before she got too old for them had been gnawing at him. During the two years between coming back from Miles’s dimension and Miles’s heat, he knew now that he had pushed too hard and too fast, that from MJ’s perspective his turnaround from kid-and-bonding-phobic sadsack to _“stop taking your suppressants, because I now want to mark you and have a kid, even though I literally divorced you rather than do that, surprise! I’m a new man, MJ!”_ had been too sudden and inexplicable to be trusted.

She hadn’t bought it; she didn’t even agree to date him, at first, saying she wanted to see where things went with the person she was dating. It was more than a year, when that relationship didn’t work out, that she agreed to give Peter a second chance to even date, and they had only agreed on exclusivity a month before Miles’s heat.

“That’s wonderful,” Peter says, “really, I wish you and Flash all the best. Tell Flash I won’t tease him anymore about high school.”

MJ laughs. “Thanks, I’ll pass it on. How’s your little one?”

“Oh, he’s good, he’s good, he’s—trying to shove blocks into the vents, hold on.”

*

When Peter demanded that he be the one to take Parker to Miles’s mother in the other dimension, he was only thinking about his need not to let his omega in heat out where some other alpha might touch him, or hell, even just smell him.

He was not thinking about what Peter taking Parker would involve: Peter, standing on the doorstep of that low rise apartment building, Parker on one hip, about to have to see Rio Morales again and hand Parker off to her, knowing that she knows that Peter is going to head back to his own dimension to marathon fuck her nineteen-year-old son.

Parker pulls his hat off again and Peter snaps out of his freeze to pick the hat up, then pushes the buzzer.

_Okay. Miles arranged this with her... she’ll be surprised, but she’s a nice woman, too nice, really. Maybe I’ll... say sorry, again. No, probably best if we both pretend like this is totally normal and—_

The door opens and it’s Jefferson Davis standing there.

“Oh, it’s you,” the cop says, his face stern and cold.

“I’m... I’m just bringing Parker over for Ms. Morales... is she here?” Peter manages, dropping his gaze.

“Hmm.” Miles’s father backs up enough for Peter to squeeze inside and go up the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you.” Miles’s mother voices the same words, but her tone is mostly simple surprise. “Parker! You remember Abuelita? Abuelita made cookies, let me get you a cookie.”

“Sit down on the couch,” Miles’s dad’s voice comes from behind Peter, and when Peter glances back, he says, “to give Parker a chance to settle in.”

“Right... sir,” says Peter, leaving Parker’s bag on the hall table and going to sit on the couch and take off Parker’s coat and shoes, which thankfully provides something to look at and do with his hands.

Miles’s mom reappears with the cookie, and Parker lights up and begins making the sign _more_ with his hands. “Cookie!”

“Abuelita brought you a cookie, Parker, let’s say ‘thank you.’ ‘Thank you, Abuelita,’” says Peter. Normally he would do the sign for _thank you_ as well, but somehow can’t bring himself to do it in front of Miles’s parents. It’s too... even though it’s something he does every day, in this context it feels like trying to show off what an exemplary parent he is.

“So.” Officer Davis is sitting in the arm chair, shuffling a little bit to face Peter directly. “I got some questions.”

Miles’s mother says something in Spanish, and Officer Davis makes a waving gesture like she doesn’t need to worry.

Peter keeps his eyes on the man’s mouth. “Yes, sir.”

“How old are you exactly?”

“I turned forty-two today.”

“Forty-two today, huh? Rio doesn’t turn forty-two until January.”

“I know the age difference is a problem in itself,” Peter says. “Even aside from how and when we... began.”

Parker wiggles down from Peter’s lap, having spotted a transparent box of building blocks.

“Last time he was here, Miles said that at the beginning of his heat he drugged you and tied you down.”

“Jeff! _Parker está oyendo,”_ Rio hisses, gesturing to the pup.

“Oh he’s too little to understand. I need to know this. Is it true?”

“Um... ah...” Peter doesn’t know where to look now. Why would Miles tell them that?! “Technically yes, but...”

“So why’d you keep him after that, then?”

Peter keeps his eyes on a small chip in the floor. “I... didn’t intend to... Miles is... Once we started... I know I’m too old for him, but...”

What is he supposed to say? _Your son looks at me with those big shining eyes and suddenly I can’t say no to anything; he’s smart and funny and strong and sweet and the sex is goddamn fantastic?_

“Jeff, _what_ are you trying to accomplish here?” his wife says.

“Well, this is it,” the alpha growls. “He’s gonna mark our son, and before he does, I wanna know how he can justify it. Hey, look me in the eyes.”

Peter does, gripping his knees, but keeping his gaze steady. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know why Miles decided to tell you now about... that part of his heat. But don’t misunderstand. We’ve... between us, we’ve agreed not to argue anymore about whose fault it was, but if Miles made it sound like I wasn’t responsible for what I did, I disagree.” 

“My son thinks he loves you enough to throw away his whole damn life. Are you worth that?”

“No, but I love him too and I won’t stop. I can’t,” Peter says without hesitating. “I love him, and I promised him last year that I’d mark him if he didn’t change his mind after a year. I’m going to keep my promise, sir.”

They keep eye contact for a few moments. Not wanting it to turn into a staring contest, Peter deliberately blinks and turns slightly. “Ma’am, there’s a package of diapers and a box of wipes in the bag, six outfits, and four sets of pajamas. Thank you both so much for taking care of Parker for us. I hope he isn’t too difficult for you.”

“Oh, we’re going to have lots of fun, I’m sure. No matter how difficult it is, we’re always glad to see Parker.” Miles’s mother says. “Isn’t that right, Jeff?”

“That part is right,” the other alpha says gruffly.

“I should get back to Miles.” Peter gets up and squats down to kiss his pup. “Bye-bye Parker, Papa will come get you soon.”

*

_My mark, my mark, my mark... my omega._

His knot’s gone down, he’s practically soft. Peter knows he should pull out of Miles, deal with the condom, get the actual ointment and bandage instead of just licking the wound over and over like he’s an actual wolf instead of a human capable of higher order reasoning.

Peter’s maybe not capable of any reasoning at all right now. He’s made himself lightheaded, inhaling so much to catch the changes in Miles’s scent. He’d never smelled anything so good in his life... and from now on, he’d get to smell it every day.

Miles is truly, permanently, irrevocably and only _his,_ now. Immune to the advances of any other alpha. Physically dependent on Peter’s scent. Unable to resist any command Peter might issue.

For someone who’s always run from responsibility, it should be scaring the shit out of him. He’d expected to have some post-marking panic and remorse. Maybe when the heat’s over, he will. But right now... he feels intoxicated with the pleasure of it.

This responsibility could not be more worth it.

“I love you so damn much,” Peter murmurs, even though Miles is still asleep. “God, don’t let me fuck this up.”

It’s almost a prayer, he thinks. All the prayer he’s capable of, anyway.

He breathes in deeply one more time before detaching himself and dealing with what needs to be done.


	8. you're my reason for reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for lots of potentially very bad Spanish here. There's vast differences in what dirty words various Spanish-speaking areas use. I tried to go for Puerto Rican as much as I can, but if I missed... uh... in this alternate dimension... this is what they use. Yeah, brilliant!

Almost everything Peter ever absorbed from society about pair bonds was about how potentially disastrous it was for the omega half of the bond. There was a vague, partially instinctive idea that an alpha with a pair bond was hot shit, a winner, better than other alphas; and yeah, he knew that being pair bonded was supposed to deaden the alpha’s libido towards anyone but their omega, but if you _had_ an omega willing to bear their neck to you why would you want to cheat anyway?

On the Sunday after marking Miles, when the omega crosses dimensions to get their pup, Peter sits down, hovers his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop, and types _how to close the barn door after the horse is gone._

Then he sighs at his own bad joke, backspaces it, and types his actual search query: _is it normal for a bonded alpha to be obsessed with his omega?_

The results both do and don’t reassure him.

Yes, Dr. Google cheerfully informs him, it’s normal for a bonded alpha to think about their omega more frequently, almost compulsively, especially just after bonding. It even drilled down into the _kinds_ of obsessions common with alphas: irrationally needing to check their omega’s safety, health, and whereabouts; thinking constantly about fucking and breeding them; evaluating everything by whether it will please or provide for the omega, even if it has no rational connection to them.

Okay. So it’s not abnormal, what Peter is feeling. But that also means that there’s no fixing this.

_You will gradually adjust to the intensity of being bonded and learn to compartmentalize your emotions when you need to focus on other things._

Compartmentalize?! Peter wants to find the author of this WebMD article and throttle them. If anybody in this damn world knows about compartmentalizing his emotions to focus on other things, it’s Peter B. as in Bottle-That-Shit-Up Parker, okay?! _So why isn’t it working?!_

Miles’s heat is over, and was already over when Peter fucked him that morning. Fucked him _desperately,_ not wanting Miles to leave, even though he knew it was just to get their pup. Knotted him without asking to keep them together longer, although at least Peter immediately confessed guiltily that it _was_ on purpose. Miles just sighed and even laughed at him.

 _Almost_ compulsively? There’s nothing ‘almost’ about this.

All his senses are on alert, looking for signs that Miles is coming back. Where is he? Why is it taking so long?!

When he hears the footsteps at the front path he feels like a neurotic crate-bound terrier. _Miles is home! Miles! Miles Miles Miles Miles!_

With great difficulty he breathes in and out rather than leap over the table and towards the door, and damn any furniture that gets in his way. Peter closes the browser tab and then the laptop as the doorknob turns.

“We’re home,” Miles calls. “Sorry we took a little longer than I thought, my mom made pancakes for brunch. You eat lunch yet?”

“Daddy,” says Parker, innocent and happy, and squirms for Miles to let him go.

Oh right, their _pup,_ the one he literally loves more than his own life, that’s the reason Miles had to leave. Peter blinks a little, feeling like something just shifted back into place inside him.

“Parker... Parker!” Miles laughs, because Parker is not having this “taking off his coat and shoes” business. He wants his dad and he wants him _now._ “Okay, okay, Daddy can take your coat and shoes off then.”

“Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy,” Parker chants as he toddles towards Peter’s arms as fast as his little legs can take him, and once he makes it there, he climbs into his dad’s lap, buries his face in Peter’s chest and takes a deep, satisfied inhale and exhale.

“He stole my scarf when I got there, too,” Miles says, smiling at the door. “Somebody missed Daddy’s smell.”

Parker smells like Miles’s father, but the heaviness of the scentmark is well within friendly boundaries for a close relative. Peter can still smell Parker’s familiar milky sweetness under it.

 _More,_ Parker signs at him, and says, “Daddy,” again, looking up at his face.

“You’re hungry already? You’re gonna grow up too fast, pup,” Peter says, unzipping Parker’s coat and tossing it to Miles to hang on the rack, then pulling Parker’s feet up to open the straps of his shoes, and toss those over to Miles as well.

Peter hefts Parker onto his hip and heads towards the dining room to get the pup in his high chair, but when he tries to put Parker in, he squirms and kicks. “No! No no no!”

“Snack time is in the chair, Parks,” Peter says, lifting the pup back into his arms. “No chair, no snack...”

He trails off because Parker is grabbing at _him._ “Daddy,” Parker says again, clutching at him a moment, and then signing _more_ again.

“I think Parker wants you to scent mark him,” Miles says, coming in and standing against the doorway. “Makes sense, right? Like, this has gotta be the longest he’s ever gone without it.”

Peter’s heart feels like it’s too big in his chest, like it’s going to burst his rib cage and thump-thump-thump its way over Parker in his arms, past Miles in the doorway, right out the door and then go beating its way down 71st Ave, towards the subway, maybe. Parker’s big golden-brown eyes with their too-long lashes are looking at him, frustrated and needy.

Peter pulls the pup in, close, against his overflowing heart, and scents him.

*

He can hear Miles singing to himself as he walks down the hall to their bedroom. “And now it’s over, it’s over, mm hmm hm hmm kacha, and the night ain’t getting younger, doo doo doo badda hmm mm, feeling kinda tilted and I’m pouring out the truth, something something something yeah now all I want is you, I’m saying, come over here and sit next to me, mmm mmm mm, clap clap—”

Miles actually said the words _clap clap_ as words, and Peter snickers at the door, which makes Miles startle.

“Aw, jeez, man,” Miles laughs, “I didn’t know you were there.”

Peter stops short upon coming into his bedroom because there’s a weird, complexly shaped cushion-thing sitting on top of the bed, and he’s pretty sure it hadn’t been there that morning. He steps closer to look at it. It’s like a wide wedge on one side leading up to a small flat platform, from which two smaller wedges slope down from either end with an opening in between, the like the arms of a boyfriend pillow. “What’s this?”

“It’s a cushion,” Miles says, but his voice is a little high. He clears his throat and fidgets with the piece of cloth in his hands.

Peter shuts the bedroom door slowly. He may not know what’s going on, but he can tell when Miles is turned on. “I know it’s a cushion... why is it on our bed?”

“Um... this is just an idea, but... Jeez. I thought you were going to take longer to come up here...”

“Omega.”

Miles stills his awkward, self-conscious swaying and widens his eyes at Peter.

“If it’s a sex thing,” Peter says, somehow always more confident in the face of Miles’s uncertainty, “then you can always get what you need from me, right?”

“Rrrrright.” Miles’s eyes shine brighter. He bites at his lower lip a moment, then says, “Um—you remember my birthday? Maybe you don’t, but... we had sex in, like, missionary position, and it was nice, _really_ nice, but when you knotted me, the angle was uncomfortable... your knot lasts a _long_ time...”

“And the cushion would make it more comfortable?”

“Yeah. That’s the idea, anyway. If you... wanna try it?”

Peter very much wants to try it. He helps Miles wrestle the pillow case onto the cushion (taking advantage of opportunities to sneak kisses and touches, of course), and they both get naked. Miles puts an ordinary pillow under his head and his hips up on the top of the trapezoid. The wedge slope on one side supports Miles’s lower back and on the other his thighs, with Peter slotted in the opening in between.

“It’s like you’re being served up to me.” Peter marvels. Something about this angle... there’s something extra vulnerable about it, and Miles is playing it up, Peter thinks, the way he’s got his arms flopped up on either side of his head and his chin tilted up a little, just that subtle exposure of his neck. “God, you’re serving yourself up to me, aren’t you, puppy.”

Miles shifts his hips a little, makes his erection wiggle against his tummy. “All for you, _mi dueño.”_

“Oh _God,”_ groans Peter, leans down over Miles to kiss that mouth. “You should be careful,” he growls. “You’ll make me fuck you before you’re ready for me.”

Miles grabs onto him, kissing him back, arching his hips up into him. “I’m always ready for you, _mi alfa.”_

“God, when you speak Spanish—”

 _“Haz lo que quieras, siempre que quieras,”_ Miles practically purrs against him, rubbing his cheek against his, and Peter is really going to lose it. _“Me encanta sentir tu barba contra mi piel cuando me chingas.”_

“Holy shit, why is that so sexy. I don’t have clue one what you said.” Peter fumbles a hand between them, and Miles tenses reflexively as Peter gets the pad of his thumb over Miles’s asshole. It’s wet, alright, but... “You sure you ready for me, baby? How do you say ‘I have a tight little pussy’ in Spanish?”

“Peter!” Miles squirms as Peter works the tip of his thumb in and out.

“Oh no no, puppy, you started this, keep it going. Tell me, ‘I have a tight little pussy,’ come on.”

 _“Tengo..._ oh my God. _Tengo un coñito a-apretado,”_ Miles manages with his eyes screwed shut, while Peter sucks a hickey on his collarbone.

“You sure do, baby, so relax for me... yeah, that’s it, so I can fuck you.” Peter pulls his thumb out and rises up on his knees. “You know... this would be a great position for me to eat you out, too, but then my mouth will be busy, so...”

“I think I made a mistake,” Miles moan-laughs. “You want me to talk more Spanish, huh?”

“Well, you don’t have to, but if you want to show appreciation for me having my tongue in your ass—”

_“Peter!”_

“Or I could give sucking your dick another try.” Peter grasps Miles’s dick lightly, gives it a brief stroke and watches as his thumb spreads a shiny line of slick along the shaft. “Since I’m not drunk this time.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want you to barf on me on my own birthday,” Miles says.

“Yeah. You can just say whatever in Spanish, anyway, not like I’d understand the difference...” Peter leans forward on his knees and gives an experimental lick to the slit of Miles’s dick. “A shopping list probably sounds just as sexy.”

_“Leche, pan, manzanas, jugo de naranja, detergente...”_

“Sexy as fuck.” Peter opens his mouth and takes in the tip.

Peter’s sucked dick before, but it’s been twenty years at least, and he hadn’t been good at it back then. Rimming couldn’t be easier, especially on Miles, who tasted so fucking good and who was so sensitive to every little thing he did, so he’d gotten complacent about how satisfying it was, tongue fucking him and tugging him off with his hand.

This is turning out to have its own pleasures, though, stuff he doesn’t remember from that blurry attempt to suck Miles off on his birthday. Like being able to see Miles’s face, and watch his expressions as he pants and tries to remember how to say things in Spanish, when usually the kid can’t even manage English when Peter’s making him see stars. Maybe it’s just lack of experience, but Miles is reacting like Peter’s a dick sucking god. It’s adorable and erotic as hell.

“Unnnghhh... _solo..._ ah, ah, ah... _d-demasiado... no puedo... no puedo no puedo no puedo,_ ohhhhhhhh! Peter, I’m gonna come, ah, ahhhh!”

Peter keeps his eyes on Miles as the omega comes. Now that he’s fully matured as an omega, he doesn’t produce much ejaculate; part of what makes it easy for omega men to have multiple orgasms per session, maybe. It’s made up for by how much slick is coming out of him, and Peter quickly switches down.

Miles yelps a little and twitches when Peter starts licking and slurping lewdly at his hole. “P-peter! I just, ah, I just came, oh...”

“You love it,” Peter says with his lips still brushing against the puckered skin.

“Peterrrr,” moans Miles, “Peter, do me, please, please—come on, _cógeme, cógeme,_ there, I said it in Spanish you—”

Not having to worry about accidentally destroying his partner frees up Peter to pounce upward onto Miles, stopping his whining with kisses wet with his own slick while he gets his cock into him.

Miles moans into his mouth, little smothered gasps and keens as his body opens up for Peter inch by inch.

It feels incredible, this time, every time since the first time, it’s incredible. His lover, his omega, his _Miles._ Gorgeous and passionate and tight and warm and precious and all for him. Only for him.

His hips thrust hard, he loses all sense of time. His beautiful boy can take it, Miles is so strong. Peter knows how much Miles loves his dirty talk, but every time he breaks off kissing Miles enough to look down at him, he just gets too caught up in seeing his face, and all he can say is:

“Look at you.”

“Oh fuck, puppy. Feels that good, huh? My cock fucking your little pussy?”

“Oh, that’s so goddamn sexy.”

“Yeah, that’s it, come around me, baby, fuck—”

—and then Peter can’t help kissing him again.

He does manage to moan, “Mmm, here it comes, puppy,” when he feels his orgasm coming, and get a hand under Miles’s neck, then surrenders to it, thrusts shortening into squirms as the base of his cock begins to swell up, until he feels that sense of _there, there, I’m in, yes, I have him, I’m closing him up with me, right there, yes,_ and stops, letting out an ecstatic sigh at the warm glowing feeling of the knot, following the high of the orgasm.

Miles didn’t make any pained noises, but Peter lightly rubs at his nape anyway, half reassuring himself that Miles is all loose and pliant beneath him, and half just enjoying the feel of his mark on Miles’s skin. He himself feels pretty relaxed. It’s the best way to fall asleep, tied to his lover.

“Peter...”

“Mm?” Peter opens his eyes, gazes at Miles sideways.

“What’s it feel like, knotting, anyway?”

“Uh... well, it feels good... guess that’s obvious.” He thinks a little. “I kind of think it’s a bit like, when you have a really good stretch, and there’s this good feeling that radiates all through you... kinda like that.”

“Wow... _that’s_ not fair,” gripes Miles, and Peter chuckles. “Ahh. Jeez, it feels weird when you laugh.”

“Sorry baby.” Peter kisses the side of Miles’s face. “Although you _do_ get the multiple orgasms thing. I used to think _that_ was really unfair... so... the knot really doesn’t feel good?”

He can’t help feeling a little insecure about that. None of the other omegas he’d been with ever said anything like that, and Peter wants to please Miles even more than any of them, because Miles is _his._

“When... um... don’t be guilty, okay?”

Oh, _that’s_ always a promising start. “I guess I’ll try,” Peter says into Miles’s neck.

“It used to hurt a lot. It still hurts a little, sometimes. Our first time it scared me... I really thought I was going to break, before you scruffed me—but I was fine when you scruffed me, really,” Miles adds in a rush, and Peter feels an extra pang, because Miles shouldn’t be worrying about how _Peter_ feels about finding out that his knot hurt Miles. “Now I sorta... know how to handle it. Even if you don’t scruff me, usually it doesn’t hurt. But even the hurt is kind of... good, sometimes... and it’s somehow satisfying, I don’t even know how to explain it. I’m not lying when I ask for your knot when we’re having sex, Peter, I swear. I like... I like _this_ part, too.” Miles’s hands rub on his back. “You being close to me like this, _inside_ me like this, staying with me. I always want to be with you, anyway, so... you’re gonna say I’m cheesy again.” The last part comes out in an embarrassed mutter.

“It still hurts you?” Peter says, brushing aside the sweet things Miles is saying.

“It’s not a _bad_ hurt. I want it. Hey, Peter, hey,” Miles shifts and nudges on him to get him to look Miles in the eyes, _“please_ don’t get the idea that your knot hurts me so you’ve gotta _stop._ That would suck so fucking bad, man.”

Peter stifles a laugh at Miles’s earnest yet vulgar way of phrasing this.

“No, I’m serious! I love your knot, Peter, I swear. Even when it hurts, I love it.”

 _You love something that hurts you? Weirdo._ Peter wants to toss this off jokingly, lightly, as if it isn’t the exact question he has about how Miles can love _Peter,_ but he doesn’t dare.

“I hate it when you don’t knot me. I get all... twisted up inside. It feels almost like I’m jealous, only it makes no sense because what am I jealous _of?_ The air, ‘cause it’s getting to touch your dick quicker?”

“Puppy,” Peter laughs, “I’m _trying_ not to laugh here, but you’re too much.”

“I keep trying to tell you, Peter, I just want to be _with_ you,” Miles says, and the passion in his voice and his eyes make Peter’s amusement die, because Miles is so serious about this. “In the heat, even then when I was a dumb kid, down deep inside me, I wanted _you,_ I wanted to be with _you,_ I wanted to touch you and be touched by you, nobody else. If you wouldn’t let me... I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’d... you’d have found someone—” Peter forces himself to say, but Miles interupts.

 _“No._ Don’t even say that... the idea of letting someone else touch me like that makes my skin crawl.”

It makes Peter’s skin crawl too, makes him want to scent mark his omega, warn everyone: this one is _mine._

Underneath him, Miles even shivers a little. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the mark, making it worse, that idea. I mean, I never _liked_ the idea of trying to find somebody else, but now, it’s totally giving me... hey, could you scent me?”

Peter does, feels his omega settle and calm beneath him, and feels better.

They’re quiet for a little, and Peter has his eyes closed and tiredness has almost made him drift off, when he hears Miles say, softly, kind of sad, “I know it’s not the same for you, I’m not the same...”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.”

“No, what...” Yawn. “What is it?”

“It’s dumb. I just... I still get insecure sometimes. I thought when you marked me it’d stop, but... I still feel like I stole something that was supposed to be MJ’s.”

“Puppy...” Peter nuzzles Miles again, licks at his jaw. “MJ and I had plenty of time to make it work if we were going to make it work, okay? That was its whole... thing. It’s over, completely. You’re the one with my mark, not her. You’re my _one,_ now, okay?”

“I just love you so much, I feel stupid. You’re so, like... everything, for me, and I’m just, I wish I was... man, I don’t even know,” Miles says, and God, he sounds so embarrassed, so _young,_ so much the teenager that he is, that it’s difficult for Peter not to get pulled off into guilt and self-disgust.

But he can’t do that right now. Not when Miles needs reassurance. He has to focus on the love, not worry about whether he should have ever let himself feel it. “Baby, I’m telling you, you’re everything to me too. You’re amazing, Miles, nobody could be better for me, you’re so much _better_ than me. I love being with you, I love you, like crazy I love you...” He runs a thumb lightly over the freckles on one cheek, leans in and drops another kiss on Miles’s lips. “You... even... God, Miles...” The beautiful wide eyes beneath him overlap with so many memories.

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Making you feel guilty. Is it working?”_

Yes, it worked, it worked then, it works now. “Oh, God, Miles,” Peter says again, like an agonized prayer as he struggles. “This is so hard, but it’s not because there’s a thing wrong with you, it’s not because you’re not worth being loved, it’s not _at all_ because I don’t love you and want you in every way, it’s not. But I know... I know what you deserve, what you should get, is for me to be able to say to you, ‘Yes, I’d choose you over anybody else, and I’m so happy I did,’ but how could I dare to say that... God, your fucking _eyes,_ Miles.”

“What about them?”

“They’re gorgeous. Parker’s eyes are the same...” Peter hates himself so much right now. He’s letting the guilt win, and he’s hurting Miles, and fucking everything up again, and he knows it, but now that he’s started talking, it just keeps coming out. “Miles... you carried my kid, Miles, and you were still a kid yourself. You were just a kid, when I fell in love with you. You didn’t steal anything, God... I stole you. I wanted you so bad, I loved you so much, that’s why I did everything, but everything I did was _wrong,_ and when you figure that out...”

Now the words stop, because the next words, _you’re going to hate me,_ get stuck in his throat, he’s going to choke on them if he tries to say them. For that precious face to look at him the way he deserves to be looked at...

But instead, Miles’s face has a kind of funny smile on it. “Man, MJ was right, when she said you’re like a Russian nesting doll of guilt... hey. I could never hate you, Peter.”

“Shit, don’t tell me you got invisibility, electricity, and now mind-reading.” He tries to protect himself with jokes, like he’s always done.

“You’ve been thrown a lot of messed up stuff, and you don’t always handle it right, yeah. But it’s whatever.”

“It’s _whatever?_ Jesus, now I really feel old.”

“Well it’s the best way to put it,” laughed Miles. “It’s whatever, man! I can’t change it, whatever, okay. All I know is that I love you so damn much and I want you to love me, right now, right here. I just love, love, love you.”

Peter leans his forehead against Miles’s and takes slow breaths. Miles smells so good. “How do you say that in Spanish? _Te amo?”_

“Yeah, but actually we usually say, _Te quiero.”_ Miles cradles his face and rubs his stubble, still smiling, still looking so beautiful that he can hardly stand it. _“Te quiero mucho. Mucho, mucho, mucho.”_

 _“Te quiero mucho.”_ Peter’s tongue feels clumsy. He doesn’t know if he said it anything close to right. But Miles smiles at him, and that feels right. Being inside him like this feels right, and it’s where he is. Miles... is so good, that must be it. He’s so good that he made it right. Peter smiles, and tries again. _“Te quiero,_ Miles.”

 _“Te quiero.”_ Miles’s eyes flutter closed, and Peter kisses him again.

_“Te quiero mucho.”_


	9. epilogue: closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world

Being a superhero means dealing with crazy shit. Peter knows this, has known it for literal decades, but it still makes his head reel every night during this period in his life, where Miles is off being Orbweaver _in space,_ doing... something... with combatting an alien invasion, or something? Peter really doesn’t know the specifics, because here he is, on earth, trying to get Parker to potty train. Dealing with an entirely different kind of shit, really.

Hopefully Miles is having an easier time fighting aliens in space than Peter is having trying to get their son to use the potty.

Every night, as part of their bedtime routine, Peter packs his son into a back carrier, and they swing over to Flushing Meadows, which is about as good as it gets when it comes to finding somewhere that’s a little less bright yet close to their Forest Hills home. Peter climbs the tallest Observation Tower, 200 feet up in the air, and then points up at the stars.

“Papa,” says Parker, used to the routine by now. Both Peter and Miles have been packing him up with them to heights since as soon as the doctors said his neck was strong enough to handle it; the last thing they wanted was a kid afraid of heights.

“Yeah, bud,” Peter says, “Papa’s up there in the stars, but he’ll be back as soon as he can. He loves us so much, he just has some work to do right now.”

He hears Parker sigh, and little fingers toy with the tufts of hair that have managed to stick out the gap between the back of his mask and the neckline of the suit. Geez, he’s let himself go too long between haircuts, hasn’t he.

“Gentle,” Peter reminds Parker. He’s staring at the stars himself a little harder than he would otherwise. At one month apart, Miles is probably already feeling side effects from not being scented directly, even with the help of preserved scent cloths. Is Miles okay? The old wives’ tale is that a bonded pair always knows if the other one is in serious distress, no matter the distance. But if Miles isn’t even in the same solar system....

Parker tugs on the hair, but not too hard, then pats his father’s neck with some kind of inscrutable satisfaction. “Okay.”

Peter feels his phone buzz as they swing home, and webs himself onto a passing Q23 bus so he can check his texts.

“We riding a bus,” Parker comments, in the toddler habit of needing to narrate everything that occurs, without any notion that there was anything strange about riding on the _top_ of a transit vehicle.

“Sure are Parks,” Peter says, distracted, as he works on entering his passcode. The fingers of the suit are _supposed_ to function as texting gloves but when they get dirty—which they do approximately ten seconds into any patrol—this is mostly theoretical.

“I see cars,” Parker informs his father, helpfully.

“Uh-huh. Lots of cars.”

 **Miles:** I’m back on earth!!!!

Peter feels like he just got jolted back to earth too. It’s only been a month but...

Before he can get his mind around the idea that his omega is home, the phone vibrates again.

 **Miles:** I’m actually not sure where I am yet but I’m getting cell phone signal so I’m sending a text anyway. It’s night here, I think, what time is it there? This is probably gonna cost like $50 per text cause I’m in Wakanda or some shit but I don’t care. I’ll be home as soon as I can okay? I love you and Parker so much, kiss him lots for me til I can get there. Oh and I’m not hurt or nothing. We got it done. Space is cool as! Hope there’s no character limit on these texts. Be home SOON AS I CAN!

 **Peter:** It’s just about 8pm here in New York, so you’re probably not in Wakanda. I hope you’re close enough to get here tonight. Missed you so bad, puppy.

“Bus is _stop,”_ Parker announces, very displeased. It’s a red light.

Peter shoves his phone away and readies his web-shooters. “Yeah Parker, we can get going, don’t worry.”

*

Peter keeps it at their temporary normal with Parker for bedtime, brushing his teeth and reading a book and so on before scenting him, tucked into bed. But even though he didn’t tell Parker anything was up, the pup still picked up on something in his vibe or his scent and was fussier than usual, crying when Peter tried to leave.

“Daddy stay. Daddy stay _please.”_

“Parker, it’s bedtime. We’ll have fun again in the morning.” Peter ruffles the dark curls and avoids looking at Parker’s pleading eyes. _“Stay in bed._ I love you. Sweet dreams.”

As he shuts the door behind him, he frowns a little to hear that Parker is still whimpering in his bed. God, kids really could tug at your last heartstring.

He checks his phone compulsively. He sets it on the toilet while he showers, because he’s gotta be clean if Miles comes back, and pokes his head out three times during the shower to double-check that he didn’t miss a text or call, as if he would.

Should he shave? He considers it, but... then he groans and leans against the cool tile of the shower, thinking about that time when he’d coaxed Miles into translating some of his Spanish dirty talk.

 _“Uh-um...” The arch of his neck, coy and excited and embarrassed, just that hint of extra warmth on his cheeks, so subtle but so riveting. “That one means, like... ‘I like the way your beard feels against my skin when you fuck me.’_ ”

He puts a hand to his hardening cock just for comfort, like he’s telling himself to hang in there, finishes the shower, and checks his phone again.

 **Miles:** Good news I’m in the US! Bad news I’m in Texas. Good news it doesn’t matter because there’s a dude here who can spacefold or something and they’re gonna get me to Queens tonight! Can you order some food or heat something up or whatever because I’m starving. Dude says should be like forty-five minutes.

 **Peter:** Can’t wait. What do you want to eat? I’ll get anything.

 **Miles:** God I could eat ANYTHING. Spaceship food is the worst, science museums made astronaut ice cream seem cool but it’s all terrible government catering.

*

Peter orders pizza, under the logic that it’s the best way to quickly get enough calories into Miles to satisfy his hunger so that he’ll be willing to satisfy Peter’s hunger to fuck him until he can’t walk.

Tomorrow they’ll just stay in all day. Him and Miles and Parker. Put on the tv in their bedroom on cartoons and just cuddle and scent his omega and pup all day. Put Parker down for a nap and fuck Miles again... or if he’s too sore, then maybe if Peter’s really sweet then Miles will suck him off and let him—

A sudden twinge of his senses is all the warning he gets before there’s a sound of tapping on the backdoor.

Miles pushes up the Orbweaver mask as Peter opens the door for him and they’re making out before they’ve even got the door closed, before Peter has hardly had a look at him, but it doesn’t matter because he can smell and touch him, and oh God has he missed this smell and this touch. Miles breaks the kiss to let out a rapturous sigh when Peter starts scenting him, and Peter wonders how the hell he’s supposed to let Miles have his pizza instead of just taking him here and now against the backdoor.

But, damn... if Miles is hungry, Peter should provide...

While he didn’t quite have the strength to break off the make-out session on his own, Peter’s at least able to let go with a good grace when Miles spots the pizza box on the counter and pulls away himself. “Pizza! Pepperoni?”

“Double pepperoni.”

 _“Sweet._ Peter, I love you.”

*

They sit on the couch together while Miles eats his pizza, Peter with his arm around him. Miles doesn’t take his mask all the way off, leaving it bunched on his forehead, and it doesn’t strike Peter as strange, but after he’s had four slices, he sits back, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and then touches the mask awkwardly.

“Okay, so... promise you won’t freak out.”

“Freak out about what?”

In answer, Miles pulls the mask all the way off, revealing that all his curls are gone. “Um... I got some alien goo thing in my hair, and... kinda had to buzz it... does it look ok?”

Peter pauses and really looks at Miles, wanting to make it clear that he’s not just doing some flippant _you look fine_ brush off. Yeah, it’s a buzz cut. The way Miles wears his mask, pushing down tight on his scalp, made Peter familiar with the shape of his skull anyway, so he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be seeing. Sure, Peter loved Miles’s curls, but he was used to them. He doesn’t want to say _you look fine,_ but... Miles really does look fine. And if Miles doesn’t like it this short, won’t it just grow it back before too long anyway? Peter searches his vocabulary for some word other than _fine._ “It looks handsome to me, Miles. But I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask about hair styles. I mean look at me.”

Miles grins and tweaks at a strand of Peter’s unkempt hair, but he still says, “No, but... I mean, _handsome,_ is that okay?”

Peter tilts his head, puzzled. Miles didn’t want to be called handsome? “I’m not getting this. I want to, but I’m not. What do you mean?”

“I thought... maybe you prefer me more, like, cute, or... ‘Cause, a lot of people on the team were trying to buck me up after I got it buzzed off, y’know, like, saying it made me look manly, but that’s... Maybe you don’t...”

Miles’s halting attempts stop as Peter takes Miles’s hand with one hand cradling it, palms together, and strokes the fingers of his other hand over the omega’s knuckles, coaxing the hand into stretching out. Their hands are almost the same size; they both have big hands for their frames. Peter’s have bigger palms and blunter finger tips while Miles’s fingers look more nimble and artistic, but still. They’ll serve for the point Peter thinks Miles is afraid to make. “Are you worried that I’m less attracted to you now that you’re an adult?”

“No! Well... sorta... not exactly. It’s not that I think you got... some kind of jailbait thing... ‘cause you been hitting it with just as much enthusiasm since I turned eighteen, far as I can tell anyway.”

Peter cracks up. _Oh Miles._ “Yeah.” He takes the opportunity to kiss the back of Miles’s hand. “I’m enthusiastic, alright.”

Miles gets that adorably flattered look and ducks his head. “Um. But it’s... you just said _handsome._ But usually you call me cute, or gorgeous, or beautiful...”

A light switch in Peter’s head flicks on. “Oh. You’re talking about feminine versus masculine?”

“Part of it, yeah. _Omegan,_ too, I think, and... I gotta admit... it’s weird, cause like... day to day, I often wish I was taller, and when my body looks stronger, I feel good about it, and I work hard to be strong, but when I’m in your arms... Man, this is weird to say out loud, but I like being smaller than you. I like _feeling_ like I’m smaller than you, maybe smaller than I really am. I want you to think I’m cute...”

“Oh, puppy...” Peter lets go of Miles’s hand, reaches up for the back of Miles’s neck with one hand while gathering him in with the other arm. He rubs on Miles’s mating scar, reveling in how Miles just _melts_ into it, melts into him. “You being bigger or older or more manly has not made you one bit less adorable to me. If anything, you just get cuter and cuter to me. This amazing, world-saving superhero who snuggles into me just like this. God.” He presses a kiss behind Miles’s ear, licks at his earlobe, kisses his jaw. “You are absolutely _precious,_ Miles. The sweetest omega. You’ll never stop being my baby.”

Miles squirms in his lap, and then Peter feels the moment when Miles notices his erection, that brief stilling, before the squirming becomes a more purposeful grinding.

*

“Mmm, fuck. Missed this little pussy so bad.” Peter delivers a light slap to Miles’s ass as he thrusts. “Missed this ass. Missed all of you, puppy.”

“M-me, me too, ah, ah, ah!”

“Yeah? You missed this cock, baby? Wanted your alpha inside you again? Oh God, puppy, when you squeeze me like that... gonna make this over too fast.”

Peter starts to slow down, but Miles whines, “No, no, harder, do it harder, please, s-so close, lemme come around your knot, alpha, please!”

Peter groans, and increases his speed a little.

“More!” Miles pushes his hips back, forcing a savage impact, his hands clawing at the sheets and ruining another set. “More, _dame más, duro, duro, duro, aún más duro—”_

“You little cheater!” Peter pins Miles down and locks his jaw on the omega’s nape, swiftly ending Miles’s ability to do anything but take it at the speed that Peter wants to give it.

It doesn’t matter anyway, though, because the touch of Peter’s teeth against Miles’s bondmark makes the omega come at once, and the combination of Miles’s ecstatic moans and the rhythmic contractions around Peter’s cock destroy Peter’s last vestiges of control. He slams his hips into Miles, hard enough to leave terrible bruises on a normal person, as he comes, and as Peter’s knot swells, his teeth break the skin again.

“Brat,” Peter says thickly, when he can speak again, and licks up droplets of blood and sweat. “Get what you deserve.”

Miles doesn’t answer, except a little satisfied noise.

Peter gets them shifted onto their sides, at a comfortable angle for going to sleep still tied, then kisses the back of Miles’s head. “It’s different, for sure. Doesn’t smell like almonds anymore.”

“Nah, yeah, don’t need the oil when it’s that short.” Miles pulls Peter’s top arm into his chest like it’s a stuffed animal he’s cuddling, and Peter smiles. Another one of Miles’s absolutely adorable habits. How could Miles ever think Peter wouldn’t find him cute when practically everything he does is so cute it hurts?

“S’really up to you,” Peter says, and yawns. “I liked the curls, but I bet this will grow on me... wait. Grow... hair... there’s a joke there, somewhere, but I’m too sleepy to figure out where.”

Miles chuckles anyway.

Unguarded on the edge of sleep, Peter says with his eyes closed, “Really missed you, Miles. This is where I’m s’posed to be. Inside you, always.”

“Yeah. Think so too.” Miles sounds just as close to asleep.

“Loved when you were pregnant,” Peter mutters.

There’s a pause, and then Miles says, distinctly more alert, though Peter doesn’t register it, “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. So beautiful, getting big ‘cause of me. Wanna knock you up again.”

“You do?”

“Hmm. So—” yawn—“bad.”

There’s another long pause, and then Miles says softly, “Okay,” but Peter’s already asleep and doesn’t hear it.

*

“Got good news, buddy,” Peter tells Parker while he unbuckles their 4-year-old pup from his car seat, when they’ve just come home from preschool. “Papa’s gonna tell you inside.”

When they get inside, Miles is sitting on the couch with headphones on, which he takes off and hangs around his neck when his alpha and son come in.

“Hi Papa,” Parker says cheerfully once he gets off his shoes, and runs over to climb up on the couch with Miles and plant a hug and kiss on the gentle swell of Miles’s tummy. “Hi baby.”

“Did Daddy tell you the news?” Miles says, hugging Parker.

Peter puts his and Parker’s shoes on the rack. “Course not, you should get to tell him.”

“Daddy and Papa found out today that the baby is a girl,” Miles says. “You’re going to have a baby sister!”

“Baby sister,” Parker says, with wide eyes, while his dad sits on the other side of him. Parker turns and snuggles into Peter’s lap, which the alpha finds surprising but is more than happy to return the cuddle, until his son pats at Peter’s tummy pudge and says, hopefully, “Baby brother?”

Miles starts laughing so hard he nearly falls off the couch.

“No, Parker,” sighs Peter.

“’Nother baby sister?”

 _“No,_ Parker, only Papa is having a baby. There’s no baby in my tummy.”

“What’s in Daddy’s tummy?” Parker asks.

Peter purses his lips as Miles grabs a tissue from the box on the coffee table to wipe tears of mirth from his face. “Food. Anxiety.”

“Ziety...?” Parker stares at his father’s stomach and pokes it cautiously.

“Never mind, Parks. Just... not a baby, buddy, okay? Miles, you better not be posting about this on social media. Miles, I swear to God, do not walk away from me with your phone!”

*

The doorbell rings.

Peter starts to get up, but there’s the sudden noise of a pair of elephants racing down from the third floor. Grace steals ahead of her brother Benji at the last moment by leaping down the last flight in one go, landing in a front somersault to leap up from and unlock the door.

“Cheater!” Benji howls, furiously racing down the stairs.

Grace yanks the door open and grabs her older brother Parker in a big hug. “Parks! Welcome home!”

“No parkour in the house, Grace, you know that,” Peter says, still unrisen from the couch. “Go to your room.”

“But Daaaaad,” Grace whines, “Parker’s home!”

“Yeah, that’s what makes it a punishment. Up you get.”

Grace huffs but releases her brother and goes up stairs.

“Is Papa not home?” Parker asks, getting a hug from Benji as Peter stands up.

“He’s got a gallery show opening tomorrow, he’s just doing some last minute checks that it’s all set up right. He knows you’re coming back today, though, I’m sure he’ll be home soon.”

When Benji moves out of the way so Parker can hug his dad, his oldest surprises Peter by ducking his head down, stooping into the embrace; wolf touch-bonding, asking for scenting. Peter wraps his arms around his son and breathes in for a moment before obliging. Parker’s alpha scent is unmistakably alpha, now, even if it isn’t mature yet.

Alphas generally scent their pups less and less as they get older, often stopping altogether when they begin first puberty. Once children hit first puberty, no one is supposed to scent them unless they initiate it. For boys and young men, and double for alphas, smelling like another alpha is often viewed as childish, cringy behaviour, on the level of advertising yourself as a “loser who lives in your parents’ basement” or “mama’s boy.” For Parker to ask for it anyway, as a sixteen year old alpha, makes Peter really happy.

“Thanks, dad,” Parker says quietly once Peter’s scented him, and lets the hug go.

“Good to have you back, kiddo,” Peter says. “The other New York have snow yet this year?”

“Flurries. Nothing that stuck like here. White Christmas, huh?” Parker looks out the window and smiles, then says, “What’s up with the tree?” gesturing to the plain pine in the corner.

“We waited for you to put the ornaments on,” Benji says. “Hey, you wanna see that Lego set you got me for my birthday? I almost finished it.”

“Sure, Ben.” As his brother starts tugging him up the stairs, Parker calls, “Uh, Dad, what’s the plan for dinner?”

“Your choice, Parks. Pizza?”

“Yeah, sounds good. Can I go with you when you pick it up? Just us?”

Huh. Something’s up, but Peter keeps it light. “Sure, you can keep the cheese from sliding.”

*

Parker doesn’t say anything for a few minutes as they drive. Peter asks something innocuous about Parker’s school in the other dimension, and Parker answers. The conversation flows fine, nothing awkward, and Peter wonders if maybe he got it wrong, when he thought something was bugging Parker, something that he wanted to get away from the rest of the family to talk about in private.

“That guy’s pulling out,” Parker says when they’re getting close to the pizza place.

“Good eye, Parks.” They snag the spot, and Peter reaches for his seatbelt.

“Dad.”

 _Oh, I wasn’t wrong._ “Yeah, Parker?”

Parker’s looking out the window at a little pile of snow. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, of course.” Peter goes ahead and unbuckles his seatbelt. Might as well be comfortable for this.

Parker turns and looks at his dad. “How old is Papa?”

This is a topic that Peter has been expecting since Parker was in diapers, so he’s able to calmly reply, “According to his ID in this universe, he’s thirty-six. But since you’re asking this question, maybe you already know that he’s actually thirty-four. Meaning he was seventeen when you were born, and sixteen when you were conceived. I was almost forty.”

“Yeah... yeah, that’s what I’m asking about.” Parker looks uncomfortable, and Peter doesn’t blame him a bit. “I never... I mean, I knew you were older than Papa, and I know you guys tried to tell me before about how you got together, and I remember thinking it was weird and gross that you were so determined to tell me about it, til you finally gave up, but...” Parker looks down. “I didn’t realize that it was actually gross.”

Peter lets himself breathe a moment. It stings like only the truth can. “Yeah, it was. You’re not wrong, Parker. Can I ask what you know?”

“Just the math,” Parker says, still looking down. “Abuelita saved a bunch of Papa’s stuff from when he was a kid, school stuff, art stuff, that kinda thing, and there was some of it that had a date and Papa’s age, and just... it suddenly clicked on me that it didn’t make sense, how young that would make Papa, and I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure it out, but...”

“Okay. I’ll try to lay the facts out, then. Your dam and I met because of the Collider incident—that part you know the story. Then we figured out how to make dimensions jumps on purpose, without opening up black holes. And I wanted... I cared a lot about your dam, but as a mentor only, back then. In his universe, he was really alone, and I wanted to help him... plus he was just always fun to be with. He made being Spider-Man fun again. So we would patrol together and I would train him. Sometimes in his universe, sometimes in this one... then... he got his status test results. He was afraid that I wouldn’t want to be alone with him anymore, so he faked results that showed him to be a beta instead. At first I was fooled. Then... one day in August, when he was sixteen, we went on patrol together in this dimension, and your dam got upset about how the patrol had gone, and when I hugged him to comfort him, he asked for scenting. He’d never done that before. I did what he asked, because I unconsciously felt the pull, and then I suddenly realized that he was an omega in early heat. That he’d lied to me. So I took him back to his own dimension and commanded him to tell his parents that he was an omega, because he’d lied to them about his status too. Then I came back to this dimension.”

Parker lifts his head, puzzled. “Huh?”

“It’s not the end of the story,” Peter says. “Should have been. But he ran into a sporing portal narcomedusa outside his apartment window. Hit him directly in the chest and gave him a full load of pollen. He’d never encountered one that was sporing before, and like an idiot, it hadn’t occurred to me to warn him about it. In combination with his heat, it made him go completely insane. He stole some xylazanine from a lab, traveled to my dimension, and injected me with it so he could overpower me.”

Parker’s face is stunned and horrified and Peter hastens to prevent him from thinking what he’s doubtless thinking.

“Your dam didn’t rape me,” he says, and Parker relaxes. “I was able, with a lot of difficulty, to get him to untie me—”

“Papa tied you up?” Parker’s back to horrified.

“He wasn’t in control of his actions,” Peter says, firmly. “I was able to get him to untie me and give me the antidote, and I should have taken him back to his own dimension again. But this is where I made possibly the worst mistake I ever have. I didn’t. I had sex with him, Parker. And again the same night, and again the next day. You were conceived from that heat.”

Parker stares at his sire, uncomprehending, or maybe more accurately, not wanting to comprehend. “Was it... the pollen got from him onto you, too?”

“I don’t know. Some people have suggested that before. I don’t know. To me, it really doesn’t matter. Even that first time, I was still lucid enough to know that I was doing something wrong, and that’s enough for me to condemn myself for what I did. Your dam doesn’t agree, but we have mutually decided that the issue of blame is to be dropped between us.” Peter half-shrugs. “It can’t be changed.”

“’You can only go from where you are, so keep going’?” Parker quotes.

“You’ve been spending more time with the other universe’s Aunt May, I see,” Peter says. “In my universe she phrased it, ‘You have to go from here, so go from here.’”

“She’s a cool old lady,” Parker says, smiling a little.

“Yeah, she is. I still really miss my Aunt May, you know.”

“Yeah. She was kinda like your mom, right? Aunt May said she wasn’t blood related to her Peter, either, so from her perspective I’m as much her nephew as I would be if the other Peter was my dad... I visit her about once a week. She gives really good advice about alpha stuff, too.”

Peter laughs. “Yeah, her advice is better than mine. On alpha stuff and anything else.”

It’s a nice little reprieve from the seriousness of what they’re actually talking about, but Peter doesn’t expect it to last and it doesn’t.

Parker fiddles with his seatbelt. “Papa was my age.”

“Yes.”

“But... you guys are so... I mean...”

Peter gives him time to come up with the words.

“I knew you were older than him,” Parker repeats, looking out the window again. “I knew that, but as far back as I could remember, you guys were always, you know, kissing, and being mushy and stuff... I thought you got together because you were in love. That you had me because you fell in love.”

“Parker, whether we were in love or not, and how old your dam was, and how old I was, and all of that, doesn’t have anything to do with your worth, you know that right?”

“Well, of course I _know_ that,” Parker says. “It’s not rational, but... it makes me feel really weird.”

“That’s okay too,” Peter says. “I’ve had your entire life to be used to this story. For you, it’s shocking and upsetting and new. I expected you to feel that.”

Parker looks at him. “So then how did you fall in love? Did you get together just for my sake?”

“Not at all. On my side... I didn’t intend to fall in love with him. I knew I was too old for him, far too old for him. As soon as I found out he was pregnant, I wanted to support him, but I meant for that to be just as a co-parent. I meant to support him in moving on from...” Peter trails off. _This mistake,_ he had meant to say; but didn’t that mean telling Parker _your conception was a mistake?_ That was the last thing he wanted to tell his son, especially right now. “From me.”

“So then what changed?”

He’s had sixteen years to prepare for this question, and he thought he had an answer, but in the moment, it’s still hard. “I’m not proud to say it, but it’s the only answer I have. I didn’t stop myself from falling in love with your dam, from being attracted to him, from wanting to be with him. It’s not a good answer. I should have refused him many times. It soon got to a point where I realized that we were both in too deep, that it was no longer just my decision. Your dam turned eighteen, he was an adult. He asked me to mark him. I told him to wait a year. A year later, he still wanted it. So we bonded. You knew already that we didn’t bond until after you were born. That was why. I wanted him to be sure, since it was permanent.”

“So... you don’t regret it?”

Peter chooses his words carefully. “I feel guilt and shame, but not regret. Our family... I can’t regret that. It shouldn’t have worked out. Everything good in my life is from such a twisted beginning. I can’t explain it. But I can’t regret it.”

Parker nods, still troubled.

“It’s a lot to take in, Parks. If you want to talk about it again, whenever you want. Or with your Papa, he’ll talk to you about it too. He has his own perspective about what happened. Right now, they’re probably wondering why we haven’t picked up our pizza yet.”

Parker cracks a smile at that and undoes his seatbelt.

The ride back home with the pizzas is quiet until they get home, where once again, as Peter reaches for his seatbelt:

“Dad.”

“Yeah Parks?”

“This whole thing is _messed up.”_

Peter presses his lips together to stifle a dark chuckle. “Yeah, it is.”

“But I still love you, Dad.” Parker smiles at him. “I mean, I really can’t put it together, what happened back then, and what I’ve seen from you guys all my life. I really thought you guys were, like, perfect.”

“I’m definitely not. Your Papa is pretty close.”

“Okay, nope, nope, nope,” Parker quickly hits the button on his seatbelt and starts getting out of the car. _“No_ mushy stuff, nope.”

Peter smiles for a moment as his oldest child flees into the house with the pizza, then sighs and pulls out his phone.

 **Peter:** Heads up, don’t know if you’re home yet, but Parker asked about how old you were when we conceived him in the car. He’s probably gonna ask for your side of it.

 **Miles:** Yeah I’m home, I just heard him come in the door. You okay? Why aren’t you coming in? It went bad?

 **Peter:** It didn’t go bad at all, honestly. I just wanted a moment to collect myself. Parker’s shocked and upset, but he’s still way more forgiving than I have any right to. He’s too good of a kid. I blame you.

 **Miles:** Me?! I was a rotten kid, don’t you remember? :P

 **Peter:** I do remember, and you were an angel. I’m coming in.

When Peter comes in, his mate and his oldest pup are standing back to back.

“He’s definitely taller, Papa,” Grace pronounces. “Sorry.”

“Who told you you could grow while you were away?” bemoans Miles, turning around and pulling his son down into a sleeper hold to muss his hair. “Huh? Huh?”

“Papa, c’mon, stop,” laughs Parker.

Benji is already stuffing his face with pizza.

Peter walks into the kitchen to grab a bag of salad to serve alongside the pizza. It feels like a normal night.

When he’s got the salad in a serving bowl and is about to bring it back out to the dining room, Miles comes in.

“Gallery set-up how you want it?” asks Peter.

“Yeah.” Miles deftly ducks himself under and between Peter’s arms. “Hey.”

Peter sighs and lets himself hug Miles. “Hey.”

“You really ok?”

“Parker’s the one you should be worried about.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to him, he’s eating pizza. You’re not answering me.”

“G-word.” Peter half-smiles. “Old news at this point. A rerun of a show I’ve already seen.”

“Uh-huh. If I know you, you’re still gonna let the whole thing play.”

“Yeah. But it ends, and then I still have you, so.” His half-smile broadens. “I’m still the lucky one.”

Miles smiles back. “I was gonna tell them tonight. Should I wait?”

Benji sticks his head through the door. “Tell us what? Tell us what?”

Peter laughs. “Told you they’d eavesdrop. Kids with superhearing are the worst.”

“Dad! We are not!” Grace calls.

Miles picks up the salad bowl, and Peter follows with the dressings. When they get to the dining room table, Miles sets the glass bowl down with a thunk and announced, “Okay, everybody, good news. I’m going to have another baby!”

Grace squeals and claps, Parker is silent and shocked, and Benji says, “But Dad’s so _old.”_

“Yeah, that’s why I told him he had to give me one more kid right now, in case I need to take one of the rest of you out. Like if one of my current children eats all the double pepperoni before their Papa gets one slice.”

“I didn’t eat _all_ of it,” Benji says defensively. “Grace and Parker had some too. You should have ordered more double pepperoni.”

A spirited debate on double pepperoni consumption ratios occurs. Peter catches Parker’s eye at one point, and his son smiles. It’s a little self-conscious, but it’s so much better than he deserves. Like everything in his life.

Benji hops in his lap after dinner and asks for scenting, which he hasn’t done for months. He must have been inspired by Parker into thinking it wasn’t so babyish after all. Grace joins the two of them for video games, giving Miles an opening to have a talk with Parker without his more superpowered younger siblings eavesdropping.

*

“Yeah, it shook him,” Miles says quietly when he comes to bed that night. “In a weird way, the pregnancy announcement seems to have helped him.”

“Huh?” Peter’s halfway asleep. “What?”

“I said the pregnancy announcement seems to have helped him. Fit some stuff together. He asked me if you wanted to have another kid. I told him the truth, that I had to persuade you. Then he said, ‘It didn’t take you much to persuade him, right? Cause it was you.’ Which is also true.” Miles pats the lump of Peter's body through the blanket.

“How did that help him?”

“Oh, because he thinks me getting pregnant is a terrible idea,” Miles says blithely, “but that you went along with it anyway, just because I wanted it. I mean, he’s still unsettled, I think. Talked about how sometimes doing something bad results in something good anyway. Like how I only got bit by the spider because I snuck out and then went through an active subway tunnel, which is crazy dangerous.”

Peter snorts. He'd roll his eyes if he could be bothered to open the lids. “Yeah, like _that's_ equivalent.”

“Whatever, point is, I think he gets that this was, like, a chance in a million kind of thing, this spark between you and me. It’s not like you would have been down to pound with any high schooler off the street.”

“God, please tell me you didn’t use those words with him.”

“Nah.” Miles gets under the covers and snuggles up to Peter. “We had a good talk. It’s gonna be okay.”

Peter scents Miles, indulges in rubbing his still mostly flat stomach. “Yeah. Weird. But it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks.
> 
> ~~(Can she write that? Legally?)~~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Wow. August 2020 will go down for me as the month when I went into a Spiderverse frenzy.
> 
> Also I just want to say that, in addition to all the other ways this was a cope and indulgence fic for me, my God, it felt good to write about a universe with no pandemic.
> 
> Quick song credits of the work and chapter titles, based on what Peter "the B stands for Born in 1980" Parker would listen to:  
> The Killers - When You Were Young  
> Panic! At the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies  
> Radiohead - 15 Step  
> Blink-182 - I Miss You  
> Chad Kroeger - Hero [Yes, from the 2002 Spider-Man soundtrack, yes]  
> Incubus - Stellar  
> the Get Up Kids - I'll Catch You  
> Santana - Smooth  
> Semisonic - Closing Time
> 
> with a stealth reference to Radiohead's "Karma Police" and also Miles singing a bonus song from 2017, "Sit Next to Me" from Foster the People.


End file.
